I wish brother Ernest would come home, he would decide the question.

Oh, Gabriella, if you only knew brother Ernest!" If I have not mentioned this _brother Ernest_ before, it is not because I had not heard his name repeated a thousand times.

He was the only son and brother of the family, who, having graduated with the first honors at the college of his native State, was completing his education in Germany, at the celebrated University of Gottingen.

There was a picture of him in the library, taken just before he left the country, on which I had gazed, till it was to me a living being.

It was a dark, fascinating face,--a face half of sunshine and half shadow, a face of mysterious meanings; as different from Edith's as night from morning.