o'clock is it, Sylva?" 

 "It is half-past nine," answered the woman. 

 "I have been dreaming the strangest dream about that beautiful mansion I was telling you I saw in my ride the other day—that 'Summer Home,' as it is so sweetly styled. I thought I saw a lovely young girl there, younger than myself, but far more womanly in aspect, and she said she was my cousin, and kissed me, and gave me rare flowers and delicious fruit. Did you say father had called for me? Well, I'll dress and go down in the parlor. What are you doing there, Sylva?" 

 "Getting your muff and tippet," answered she. 

 "Is father going to take me out?" asked Edith with animation. 

 "Rufus is going to take you to church," said Sylva. "He said you expressed a wish to go last Sabbath, but it was too cold. To-day is more pleasant, and he is ready to attend you." 

 "He is kind," said Edith. "Am I not a naughty girl to murmur when I have a brother so good, and a father who loves me so dearly?" 

 "You do not murmur, do you, Miss Edith?" 

 "Sometimes I wish I had a mother, or that she had lived long enough to leave her form and features impressed on my memory." 

 A tear fell as the fair girl spoke thus, but she brushed it quickly away, and commenced arraying herself for church. 

 "I shall be delighted to behold the interior of that antiquated looking building," remarked she, as Sylva placed the dainty hat over the clustering curls; "and, besides, I can see all the village people, and form some opinion of those who are henceforth to constitute our associates and friends." 

 "And all the people will see you, too," said Sylva, smiling. 

 "O, I don't mind that!" answered Edith; "they would all see me, sooner or later, as I'm to go to school, in the spring, at the white seminary on the hill." 

 Thus speaking, the beautiful girl descended to the drawing-room. A tall, elegantly-proportioned man, with a magnificent head of raven black hair, which hung in one dense mass of luxuriant curls all round his broad, marble-like brow, and quite over his manly shoulders, was leaning in a careless, graceful attitude against a splendid mahogany-cased piano, that stood in the centre of the 

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