“Nay, Katharine, let us not return from all this quiet, to the noise of the town, until, like a young widow who veils her face from the past, and the relations of her dead husband, to go forth to other scenes, there once more to unveil it,—twilight wraps up the beauties of this vale, and then gives gentle and holy echoes to the streets. The town is pleasant then; but now—a little further on, and we shall seat us by the Hermit’s Well. On its calm surface the first and brightest star of night will glimmer beneath our feet. Heed not my laughing sister.”
“My brother,” gaily answered the companion of the lady, whom the speaker addressed, and whose arm was within his, “is pleased to be poetical. But cannot you prevent that same widow of yours, Mrs. Twilight, from leaving this vale, and entering the town in search of a husband, by wedding her yourself? Perhaps you are engaged already?—Is he Katharine?”
“Really, Alice, do you suppose that your brother would make me his confidant?”
“Would that Mrs. Twilight,” was the exclamation of the mischievous girl, “were here, to hide the blush on somebody’s face! Oh, look angry, hate James and his sister. He has scarcely succeeded in making you as sly a hypocrite as himself. My father sent him to Cambridge, to devote himself to Mother Alma, but he soon found another saint, who cared not for books and themes. The diligent student, whose letters home spoke of nothing but long vigils, and faint tapers burning through the night, was in love! He had met with a beautiful lady of gentle blood, and high birth, whom I have seen, Katharine,” and she looked archly up at her companion. “He thought of nothing but love, and of no one but her, and yet he counterfeited so well, that when he returned to us, he was pale in appearance, and retired in habits.”
“Alice,” replied her brother, laughing, “you are a rare vixen, and will never be reformed, until love has caught you. You, indeed, pay but a poor compliment to the imagination and heart of a student, to suppose that he cannot be a lover. Ponderous tomes will crush every feeling but love. Mathematics will measure and bound, with their cold laws, every feeling but love. Amidst all his researches, the image of one appears before him, bright and beautiful, even by the faint light of his lamp. She is of earth, but holy; and the more that learning and genius throw their rays upon his mind,—that being the mirror in which she is reflected,—the purer and softer does she become. But, Alice, you frequently cautioned me not to be a hard student.”
“And,” added Katharine, “did not your brother gain many of the highest prizes?”
“He has gained one, Katharine, has he not?” and the mischievous girl smiled significantly to her companion, who blushed with a deeper tinge than before, and seemed still more embarassed.
“You mean the beautiful gold medal, Alice?” inquired her brother, anxious to smooth over the hint.
“Ah! do I?” returned his sister with a playful sneer. “But I have a tale to unfold concerning it. I often observed you walking in the garden, looking anxiously upon something suspended from your neck, and when I came up, you quickly placed it again next to your breast. Katharine, are you listening? Well, one day I surprized you; you affirmed that it was the gold medal—I denied that it was. It was a miniature likeness of one of my friends,” and she fondly placed her arm around her companion, who drew the necklace closer to her bosom, lest, perchance, some miniature might be discovered there also.