I ought to be flattered if not won by the homage he pays me." Then she sat down, and began looking into her heart again, her keen vision penetrating to its farthest recesses.

A long fluttering sigh breathed at length through her lips, and starting up she said, "I am weak and foolish! Life is a reality; not a cycle of dreamy romance.

All poetry lies in the dim distance--a thing of memory or anticipation--the present is invariably prose.

How these vague ideals do haunt the mind! Love! Love! I had imagined something deeper, purer, holier than anything stirring in my heart for Leon Dexter! Was I deceived?
Is the poet's song but jingling rhyme ?--a play of words in trancing measure?
Let me bind back into quietude these wildly leaping impulses, and clip the wings of these girlish fancies.

They lead not the soul to happiness in a world like ours." Again her form drooped, and again she sat for a long period so lost in the mazes of her own thoughts, that time and place receded alike from her consciousness.