"Why, what ails the girl? She won't even accept an orange from my hand."
"Yes I will, uncle; but after you had prepared it so nicely, I thought you ought to enjoy it yourself," she answered, accepting the luscious fruit. He gazed on her affectionately while she ate the juicy slices, with grateful relish, and when she had finished, said, "Now will Annie read to me awhile?"
"With the greatest pleasure, uncle," she answered, returning to the package of books, from which she read till he was satisfied.
"Your voice reminds me of those wild, bright birds I used to hear singing in that old wilderness of Scraggiewood, when I called on a quiet evening at that rocky cottage where you were nursed into being; a spot fit to adorn a fairy tale. No wonder you are such a pure-souled, imaginative creature, reared in that pristine solitude of nature. Now you may retire, darling, and don't fail to be down in the morning to pour the old man's coffee, because it is never so sweet as when coming from Annie's little hands." Thus speaking, he bestowed a fatherly kiss upon her soft cheek, and she glided away to her own apartment. A long time on her downy couch she lay gazing on the moonbeams that glinted over the rich flowers of the Persian carpet, while crowding thoughts and fancies thronged upon her brain. Most prominent were those of Sheldon, and his connection with the magazine for which she had written her prizes. Amid wonderings and fancyings she fell asleep, to follow them up in dreams, with every variation of hue and coloring. She was roaming through the gravelled avenues of an extensive flower-garden, when a rainbow of surpassing brilliancy spanned a circle in the air above her, and wherever she turned her steps, it followed, hovering just above her head; and the delicate colors seemed to strike a warm, heart-thrilling joy down to the inmost recesses of her soul. She woke, with a delicious sense of happiness, to find the morning sun throwing his golden beams into her apartment.
CHAPTER XXI.
"And I did love thee, when so oft we met
In the sweet evenings of that summer-time,
Whose pleasant memory lingers with me yet,
As the remembrance of a better clime
Might haunt a fallen angel. And O, thou—