and imagination, and could not help lavishing them wherever there was material for them to work upon. But for the coarser matters of the domestic routine, she appeared to have an innate and ineradicable aversion. She "shirked" them (her grandmother said); but it was plain that she did it involuntarily, rather than of deliberate purpose. When she was forced to it, she took them in hand aptly enough, but with a certain fastidious, arm's-length haste, that the distasteful duty might be quickly done with; or she worked dreamily, with a mind afar off. So I had set her hastily down as a vain and frivolous girl, with her head chiefly running on matters of dress, and cherishing in her heart an unwise contempt and distaste for life's every-day duties and burdens. I now saw that this judgment must needs be greatly modified; though it might still be true, in a mild degree, for Alice was too young a poetess to have discovered the essential poetry latent in life's most practical affairs, the beauty that grows beside its commonest walks.

Yet she possessed something that might soon lead to the discovery-the art of practical arrangement. She had that mysterious happiness of touch, by which all the hidden capabilities of things are brought forth and made to minister to comfort or to taste;-a charming attribute in the mistress of a household, enabling her to organize a delightful enough home out of apparently barren and incongruous elements. Whatever Alice touched seemed to fall inevita

bly into lines of grace. A room where her hand had been, wore a cosy, habitable aspect, curiously in contrast with the starched propriety of Mrs. Prescott's arrangement. bouquets that she arranged looked as if the flowers had spontaneously grouped themselves together in obedience to their own lovely and mystical affinities. The dishes of fruit that she brought to the table, wreathed with their own leaves, or with buds and blossoms exquisitely adapted to them in fragrance and color, might have served as studies.

for an artist. These works suited her; they seemed to be a spontaneous outgrowth, rather than the result of conscious volition. Within their sphere, her fancy was inexhaustible, her invention akin to magic. It was a mystery where she got the trait; it was innate, of course, but not hereditary, -unless derived from some very remote ancestress, whose name has dropped out of the genealogical table that Mrs. Divine keeps in a convenient niche of her memory, ready to be produced and consulted, at the shortest notice.

The pleasant illumination thus thrown upon Alice's character fell rosily over her person also, and transfigured that to my outer vision, as it had the former to my mental view. She was not beautiful: beside Ruth's rare and artistic loveliness-the rich glory of her auburn hair, and the shifting light and shadow of her brown eyes, the pale, cool tints of Alice's face looked like a crayon sketch beside a brilliant painting. Nevertheless, my glance now lingered with pleasure on the graceful contour of her head, the intellect crowning her brow, the mystic depths of her thoughtful, far-gazing eyes, the harmonious lines of her womanly, yet most petite figure,-for Alice is small enough to have fairy blood in her veins. Always a little inclined to genius-worship, I began to feel a half-reverence for the shy, silent girl, whom I had been accustomed to regard with indifference. I was humbled to the dust by the discovery of my long blindness!

"The point that is made against you," said Bona, quietly, "being simply that you cannot recognize your own ideal of incipient genius, when it is taken out of the domain of imagination, and walks beside you daily in the humble garb of a plain, shy New England maiden, amid the homely duties of a New England farm-house!"

The next moment I was ready to laugh at my own credulity, and satirize my late-budding enthusiasm. "Don't be a goose!" I said to myself, severely. "As if every girl in Christendom does not, during the fertile period of her

teens, try to make verses; and succeed well enough to satisfy her own crude taste, and that of some partial friends! As if you, yourself, had not made a few trembling attempts of the sort, which you treasured carefully, for a year or two, as possible gold, and threw away, at the end of that time, as most certainly lead!"

66

Besides," added Mala, masquerading in the garb of common sense, "you know your imagination is prone to fly away with you, and to drop you, not into the valley of Diamonds, but that of Disappointment. It is absurd to dream of finding two geniuses in this little out-of-the-way place,-granting that Ruth Winnot is one, which is more than I believe. And, amid all this labor and thought for others, what is to become of the rest that you came to Shiloh especially to find? You know you need it."

BONA. Not yet. Rest—that is, inaction-would be far more wearisome to you than any work. The toiling hand lightens the burdened heart; the busy life relieves the brooding mind. The rest "remaineth."

Wonderful is the quickness of thought! All this, if not in detail, yet in substance, passed through my mind while I still held Alice's hand, and before Ruth could have had much time to wonder at my delay in replying to the bit of information wherewith she had favored me. In truth, I was too much surprised by it, and too uncertain how much it might be worth, to make any im mediate, pertinent answer possible; and my words must have seemed to ignore it completely, when they came, though, in reality, they were not uninfluenced by it. If Alice really possessed the poetic faculty, it was another reason why she should not waste her strength on a task unsuited to her.

She sat, meanwhile, with downcast eyes, looking both distressed and scared. I suspect she feared an immediate demand for a specimen of her verse-making. Obviously, it was a relief to her when I only asked,

"Alice, would it be much of a disappointment to you not to take music-lessons, now or later?”

She met my eyes with unusual directness and frankness. "I think it would-a little; I thought I should like it very much. But," she added, with a very sweet, docile look, "I can trust your judgment about it, Miss Frost. It shall be yes or no, just as you say."

"Decidedly no, then. I believe that the most you could hope to do, would be to learn enough of the principles and resources of music to enable you to understand and enjoy it more perfectly, when you hear it from others;no worthless acquisition, to be sure, but you can accomplish the same thing, in an easier way. Since Ruth is willing, you can make it a rule to be present at her lessons, and listen to the instructions she receives. You will thus learn a good deal of the science of music; you will see the objects she is working to attain; you will understand the nature and the amount of the difficulties she has to overcome, and the value of the successes she achieves; and whenever her time of triumph comes, you will rejoice in it as if it were your own. Thus, she will get the help and comfort of an intelligent, adequate sympathy, born of knowledge; and you will get the benefit of her labor, without the time and fatigue. A theoretical knowledge of music will be an advantage to you, if you are "-(a poetess, I was about to say, but I reconsidered the matter, and substituted) "if ever you are thrown into musical society."

Alice gave me one of her quick, penetrating glances: she comprehended, instinctively, that there was something more in my thought than appeared in my words. Ruth looked dissatisfied.

"You don't know how much I wanted Alice for a fellow-student," she said, dolefully.

"Take heart," I rejoined, smiling, "she may fill that position yet. Alice, have you any talent for languages?"

"I don't know," answered she, "I never tried."

"I was intending to request Ruth to take up the study of Italian, also," observed I, "and to ask you to join her in it. It is, eminently, the language of music;-the day will come when she will find it necessary, or expedient, for her to sing in it, and I wish to save her from the inconve nience and the wearisomeness-not to say, the absurdityof using words without meaning to her. It is, also, well worth learning for its literature. Certain master-pieces of epic and lyric poetry can only be studied satisfactorily by its aid; for though history, philosophy, and morality, may be translated without serious detriment, that chill process is fatal to the ethereal essence and subtle grace of poetry. Who would know Dante and Tasso and Petrarch, face to face, and heart-throb to heart-throb, therefore, must know them through the clear, soft medium of the language they loved;-vainly we try to pour their thought into any other mould!

"Under other circumstances, I might prefer to have you commence this branch of study with a different language; but you and Ruth wish to work together, and there is often profit, as well as pleasure, in such companionship. If you like the study, and develop a talent for it, we will try something else, by and by."

Alice's eyes had grown very bright through this long speech. She now said,

Thank you.

I shall like it so much!" Ruth made a comical little grimace. "You do well," said she, "to couple us together, in this business. I am not a bookworm by nature, as Alice is, and the sight of her quickness and studiousness will shame me into doing my utmost. There is no doubt that she will learn fast enough; Alice can turn her hand to anything."

"Finally," said I, "I have ventured to cut out a little work—perhaps play would be the fitter phrase,-for us all. I propose that we shall spend certain hours of each week