He could not but own that she was born for a brilliant destiny,--that no ball-room would throw a light from its chandeliers too strong for her,--that no circle would be too brilliant for her to illuminate by her presence.

Love does not thrive without hope, and Cyprian was beginning to see that it was idle in him to think of folding these wide wings of Myrtle's so that they would be shut up in any cage he could ever offer her.

He began to doubt whether, after all, he might not find a meeker and humbler nature better adapted to his own.

And so it happened that one evening after the three girls, Olive, Myrtle, and Bathsheba, had been together at the Parsonage, and Cyprian, availing himself of a brother's privilege, had joined them, he found he had been talking most of the evening with the gentle girl whose voice had grown so soft and sweet, during her long ministry in the sick-chamber, that it seemed to him more like music than speech.

It would not be fair to say that Myrtle was piqued to see that Cyprian was devoting himself to Bathsheba.