works of imagination and feeling, and for two years read scarcely a book which did not severely task my mind.  I devoted myself more to my mother, and interested myself in the poor and sick.  Last, not least, I resolved on taking the whole charge of your education, Katy; and of my various specifics, I think I would recommend the training of such an elf as the ‘sovereignest remedy’ for first love.  The luxuriant growth of your character interested, stimulated, kept me perpetually on the alert.  I soon began to work con amore at this task; my spirits caught at times the contagious gayety of yours; my poor heart was refreshed by your warm childish love.  In short, I began to live again.  But, ah! dear Kate, it was a long, stern conflict.  Many, many months, yes, years, passed by, ere those troubled waters became clear and still.  But I held firmly on my way, and the full reward came at last.  By degrees I had created within and around me a new world of interest and activity, in which this little whirlpool of morbid feeling became an insignificant point.  I was conscious of the birth of new energies, of a bolder and steadier sweep of thought, of fuller sympathies, of that settled quiet and harmony of soul which are to be gained only in the school of self-discipline.  That dream of my youth now lies like a soft cloud far off in the horizon, beautiful with the morning tints of memory, but casting no shadow.”

She paused; then added, in a lively tone:  “Well, Kate, the fifteen minutes are not out, and yet my story is done.  Think you now it would really have been better to go a-swinging on a willow-tree over a pond, and so have made a good poetical end?”

“Oh, I am so glad you were not such a goose as to make a swan of yourself, like poor Ophelia!” said I, throwing my arms around her, and giving her half a dozen kisses.  “But tell me truly, was I indeed such a blessing to you, ‘the very cherubim that did preserve thee’?  To think of the repentance I have wasted over my childish naughtiness, when it was all inspired by your good angel!  I shall take heed to this hint.”

“Do so, Kate, and your good angel will doubtless inspire in me a suitable response.”

“But tell me now, Aunt Linny, who the living man was.  Was he a real cousin?”

“I may as well tell you, Kate, or you will get it from your ‘familiar.’  You have heard of our rich cousin in Cuba, Henry Morrison?”

“Oh, yes; I have heard grandfather speak of him.  So, then, he was Cousin Harry!  I should like one chance at his hair, for all his goodness.  Did you ever meet again?”

“Never.  His father’s family soon removed to a distant place, so that there was no necessity for visiting the old home.  But I have always heard him spoken of as an upright merchant and a cultivated and generous man.  He has resided several years in Cuba.  A year or two since, he went to Europe for his wife’s health, and there she died.  Rumor now reports him as about to become the husband of an Englishwoman of high connections.  I should be very glad to see him once more.—­But come now, Kate, let’s have a decennial celebration of our two anniversaries.  Lay the tea-table in the grape arbor, and then invite grandpapa to a feast of strawberries and cream.”