“He probably goes to the city every day,” said Mrs. Markland.  “I believe he is engaged in business.”

“Yes; I think I heard Edward say that he was.”

“Our visit might be a pleasant one in some respects,” observed Mrs. Markland, “if he were at home.  To him, we are not entire strangers.”

“I see him in the portico,” said Fanny, leaning toward the carriage window.  They were now in sight of the house.

“Yes, there he is,” added Aunt Grace, in a pleased tone of voice.

In a few minutes the carriage drew up at the beautiful mansion, in the portico of which were Mr. Willet and his mother and sisters, waiting to receive them.  The welcome was most cordial, and the ladies soon felt at home with each other.

Flora, the youngest sister of Mr. Willet, was a lovely girl about Fanny’s age.  It did not take them long to know and appreciate each other.  The mind of Flora was naturally stronger than that of Fanny, partaking slightly of the masculine type; but only sufficient to give it firmness and self-reliance.  Her school education had progressed farther, and she had read, and thought, and seen more of the world than Fanny.  Yet the world had left no stain upon her garments, for, in entering it, she had been lovingly guarded.  To her brother she looked up with much of a child’s unwavering confidence.  He was a few years her senior, and she could not remember the time when she had not regarded him as a man whose counsels were full of wisdom.

“Where have you been for the last hour?” Mr. Willet inquired of the young maidens, as they entered, arm-in-arm, their light forms gently inclined to each other.

“Wandering over your beautiful grounds,” replied Fanny.

“I hardly thought you would see them as beautiful,” said Mr. Willet.

“Do you think that I have no eye for the beautiful?” returned Fanny, with a smile.

“Not so,” quickly answered Mr. Willet.  “Woodbine Lodge is so near perfection that you must see defects in Sweetbrier.”

“I never saw half the beauty in nature that has been revealed to my eyes this morning,” said Fanny.  “It seemed as if I had come upon enchanted ground.  Ah, sir, your sister has opened a new book for me to read in—­the book of nature.”

Mr. Willet glanced, half-inquiringly, toward Flora.

“Fanny speaks with enthusiasm,” said the sister.

“What have you been talking about?  What new leaf has Flora turned for you, Miss Markland?”

“A leaf on which there is much written that I already yearn to understand.  All things visible, your sister said to me, are but the bodying forth in nature of things invisible, yet in harmony with immutable laws of order.”

“Reason will tell you that this is true,” remarked Mr. Willet.

“Yes; I see that it must be so.  Yet what a world of new ideas it opens to the mind!  The flower I hold in my hand, Flora says, is but the outbirth, or bodily form, of a spiritual flower.  How strange the thought!”