I began abruptly:—­Do you know that you are a rich young person?

I know that I am very rich,—­she said.—­Heaven has given me more than I ever asked; for I had not thought love was ever meant for me.

It was a woman’s confession, and her voice fell to a whisper as it threaded the last words.

I don’t mean that,—­I said,—­you blessed little saint and seraph! —­if there’s an angel missing in the New Jerusalem, inquire for her at this boarding house!—­I don’t mean that!  I mean that I—­that is, you—­am—­are—­confound it!—­I mean that you’ll be what most people call a lady of fortune.  And I looked full in her eyes for the effect of the announcement.

There wasn’t any.  She said she was thankful that I had what would save me from drudgery, and that some other time I should tell her about it.—­I never made a greater failure in an attempt to produce a sensation.

So the last day of summer came.  It was our choice to go to the church, but we had a kind of reception at the boarding-house.  The presents were all arranged, and among them none gave more pleasure than the modest tributes of our fellow-boarders,—­for there was not one, I believe, who did not send something.  The landlady would insist on making an elegant bride-cake, with her own hands; to which Master Benjamin Franklin wished to add certain embellishments out of his private funds,—­namely, a Cupid in a mouse-trap, done in white sugar, and two miniature flags with the stars and stripes, which had a very pleasing effect, I assure you.  The landlady’s daughter sent a richly bound copy of Tupper’s Poems.  On a blank leaf was the following, written in a very delicate and careful hand:-

Presented to . . . by . . . 
On the eve ere her union in holy matrimony. 
May sunshine ever beam o’er her!

Even the poor relative thought she must do something, and sent a copy of “The Whole Duty of Man,” bound in very attractive variegated sheepskin, the edges nicely marbled.  From the divinity-student came the loveliest English edition of “Keble’s Christian Year.”  I opened it, when it came, to the fourth Sunday in lent, and read that angelic poem, sweeter than anything I can remember since Xavier’s “My God, I love thee.”—­I am not a Churchman,—­I don’t believe in planting oaks in flower-pots,—­but such a poem as “The Rosebud” makes one’s heart a proselyte to the culture it grows from.  Talk about it as much as you like,—­one’s breeding shows itself nowhere more than in his religion.  A man should be a gentleman in his hymns and prayers; the fondness for “scenes,” among vulgar saints, contrasts so meanly with that—­

“God only and good angels look
Behind the blissful scene,"-

and that other,—­

“He could not trust his melting soul
But in his Maker’s sight,”—­

that I hope some of them will see this, and read the poem, and profit by it.