strange parent; the ties of blood asserted themselves in her words and caresses, but they looked doubtfully out of her eyes.  Educated far away from him, and amid other associations, she could not be blind to his faults and shortcomings.  The social gulf that divided them, though bridged by her sense of duty, was ever present in her thoughts.  I mourned over the remorseless avarice that made him what he was; I almost regretted the culture that placed her so far above him; but, knowing the rude shocks to her sensitive nature, the ruthless trampling on every womanly instinct, I mourned for her the most.

Alas for the schemes of prosy men and women! when tender Loveliness goes airing herself through shady lanes, frank young Valor is seldom far off.  The Eurydice may be only a school-girl, and Orpheus a brave, manly boy in a blue coat; but there is a world of heart-fluttering, for all that.  The flush of conscious beauty blooming on the cheek of one, is generally a shadow of the warm red that mantles the face of the other.  While Eurydice Gripstone mused in quiet nooks, it was no fabled youth of magic lyre who sent the rhetoric and botany waltzing through her brain; and when the fierce cry of “Lights out!” hurried Jane Eyre under the pillow, it was no dream of impossible mustaches that made her hear the clocks chime dismally and the cocks crow for midnight.

When the long-looked-forward-to Commencement-day was at length looked on, and our heroine tripped up to the platform to read her Essay on Filial Affection, alas for its consistency! it was not the grin of Pluto Gripstone staring stupidly at the show, but the smile of Orpheus, now blessed with a strong beard, that set the recipient of undying fame a trembling.  And now, when the farewell had been said, and Orpheus left to break his lyre and mourn,—­when Pluto had carried home his prize and the dreary occupation of being as extravagant as possible had commenced,—­they were no notes of weird pathos, but billets containing many brave promises, that made strong coffee the most delectable of drinks.  Of course all these changes from dreamy reverie to tremulous joy could not escape the searching eye of Pluto; and of course, when questioned, no Eurydice of spirit would think of denying the mate for whom she pined.

Oh, the consternation of the discovery!  Oh, the thunders of remonstrance with which Hades resounded!  The wheel of Ixion might whirl, and the pitchy depths blaze with the fires of indignation, but all this did not dry the tears of the nymph, nor soothe her bitterness of woe.  Every tenderness that could reconcile, every enjoyment that could wean, was vainly essayed; mourning for her Orpheus, she would not be comforted.