“I am glad to see you, Georgia.  Where is Helen?”

“Oh, gone to ride with one of her adorers; but I have brought somebody to see you who is worth the whole Asbury family.  No less a personage than my famous cousin Reginald Lindsay, whom you have heard us speak of so often.  Oh, how tempting those luscious berries are!  Reginald and I intend to stay to tea, and father will perhaps come out in the carriage for us.  Come, yonder is my cousin on the gallery looking at you, and pretending to talk to Mrs. Williams.  He has read your magazine sketches and is very anxious to see you.  How nice you look; only a little too statuish.  Can’t you get up a smile?  That is better.  Here, let me twine this cluster of wistaria in your hair; I stole it as I ran up the steps.”

Beulah was clad in a pure white mull muslin, and wore a short black silk apron, confined at the waist by a heavy cord and tassel.  Georgia fastened the purple blossoms in her silky hair, and they entered the house.  Mr. Lindsay met them, and, as his cousin introduced him, Beulah looked at him, and met the earnest gaze of a pair of deep blue eyes which seemed to index a nature singularly tranquil.  She greeted him quietly, and would have led the way to the front of the house; but Georgia threw herself down on the steps, and exclaimed eagerly: 

“Do let us stay here; the air is so deliciously sweet and cool.  Cousin, there is a chair.  Beulah, you and I will stem these berries at once, so that they may be ready for tea.”

She took the basket, and soon their fingers were stained with the rosy juice of the fragrant fruit.  All restraint vanished; the conversation was gay, and spiced now and then with repartees which elicited Georgia’s birdish laugh and banished for a time the weary, joyless expression of Beulah’s countenance.  The berries were finally arranged to suit Georgia’s taste, and the party returned to the little parlor.  Here Beulah was soon engaged by Mr. Lindsay in the discussion of some of the leading literary questions of the day.  She forgot the great sorrow that brooded over her heart, a faint, pearly glow crept into her cheeks, and the mouth lost its expression of resolute endurance.  She found Mr. Lindsay highly cultivated in his tastes, polished in his manners, and possessed of rare intellectual attainments, while the utter absence of egotism and pedantry impressed her with involuntary admiration.  Extensive travel and long study had familiarized him with almost every branch of science and department of literature, and the ease and grace with which he imparted some information she desired respecting the European schools of art contrasted favorably with the confused account Eugene had rendered of the same subject.  She remarked a singular composure of countenance, voice, and even position, which seemed idiosyncratic, and was directly opposed to the stern rigidity and cynicism of her guardian.  She shrank from the calm, steadfast gaze of his eyes, which looked into hers with a deep yet gentle scrutiny, and resolved ere the close of the evening to sound him concerning some of the philosophic phases of the age.  Had he escaped the upas taint of skepticism?  An opportunity soon occurred to favor her wishes, for, chancing to allude to his visit to Rydal Mount, while in the lake region of England, the transition to a discussion of the metaphysical tone of the “Excursion” was quite easy.