scenting every hedge-row with hid violets; in those sweet days, when wind-flowers opened in the woods, and the thorny branches of the black-thorn powdered with snowy blossoms shone on their outskirts, and the early orchis lifted up its purple spike, and the blue flowers of the ground-ivy pierced through its dark round leaves, and lit up banks and sunny borders, while the willow shook its yellow palms in the air, as the first bee sang paans midst them-who does not sympathize in the congenial quests of these Hygeians, who won health for themselves, whilst eliciting for others curative properties from bud and leaf? They saw the summer's chaplet in its making; the coming forth of every bloom that formed it; from the bride-like blossoms of the wild cherry, "scented and white," scattering the ground with pearly showers, to the red poppy with its flag-like petals, waving upon the outskirts of a camp of corn-sheaves. All the sweet wonders of the flowery earth disclosed themselves to them. They saw the orchises in silent woods, configure insects in their strange efflorescence, and mime another portion of creation. For them the meadow-queen waved her white plumes beside the water-courses, where money-wort shone pelf-like in the sun, and blue-eyed brooklime bathed its green stalks, mid-deep in the still shallows; for them the wild rose wore her earliest garlands, and the May opened first her scented clusters; while sun-burnt honeysuckle, idling by the way, decked carelessly the hedgerow with her blossoms-now nestling its fragrant whorls amidst the dark leaves of the shining holly-now hanging pendulous from a way-side oak, or tangling in a coil of leaves and flowers around the trunk of a distorted pollard. From the meadows dappled with fair-rayed daisies, to the uplands burnished with golden furze; from the wide-spread commons, open heaths, and barren places, to the moist, rich valleys, and reedy swamps; every step for them was one of interest-various situations produced their different specifics, and demanded fresh pilgrimages and daily tasks. Now their pursuit led them amidst pastures, spangled with drooping cowslips, those delicate earrings of the vernal flora, whose leaves and flowers were deemed effectual in restoring beauty; now into groves and rocky woods, where lilies of the valley, under the green sheath of their clustering leaves, affected secrecy, while every breath that shook the odour from their crimpéd bells told of their "whereabout:" at others, the fair blossoms of the elder led them through shady lanes and sylvan alleys, arched with the leafy boughs of ash and elm-trees, and interwoven with clambering clematis; where, with its hoar green leaves spreading far, spreading and twining with its small fine claspers, came forth the briony, or ladies' seal, bearing at every joint clusters of faint green flowers, in shape like tiny signets. Here, too, the bindweed threw its twisted steins from spray to spray, the natal robes of its fair flowers at morn, changing to shrouds at night; yet, like the germ of hope in human bosoms, 66 replacing with fresh buds the daily disappointment, and blooming on till death. Sometimes, so many phases had their sweet vocation, they sought the gravelly hills where bugloss and the purple foxbell grew; or penetrated thickets, lit by the gems of many a starry flower," to seek the potent petals of St. John's wort, whose juices were supposed to cure madness. Nor was it only through the genial spring, and that fair time "when winking marybuds begin to ope their golden lids," that their employments lasted. In the still days of autumn, "when the leaf incessant rustles from the mournful grove;" delicious days, with only just sufficient air to float the wandering thistle-down, or waft the fairy wefts from invisible factories, to glisten with the hoar-frost on the grass, or hang amidst the varnished berries of the dog-rose tree-days with languid skies and softened sunshine-with the lark's lingering song in heaven, and the robin's wild shrill note in the shade-the flowers of colchicum, the roots of arum, with the majority of seeds and tubers, were in their prime. While in midwinter, when the leafy bowers of "travellers' joy," a sered and tangled wreck, waved midst the desert hedges its plumed "akenias," like funeral bunches of grey marabouts, and mosses furred the banks where flowers had blown, even these were not without their uses, but were estemed restorative and stimulating. All times, all seasons, brought in requisition their charming knowledge; whether they stole " along the lonely dale in silent search, or through the forest rank with what the dull incurious weeds account." There was no lack of interest for them: "they looked upon the earth, and it taught them all its unpublished virtues"-its secret stores of health, and life, and joy." For them, too, their pursuit was full of devotion as of charity. Holy names hung about the hedgerows, and the gathering of herbs and flowers, like counting the beads of a rosary, reminded them of sacred things and heaven; scriptural stories shone in floral characters, and saintly legends upon every leaf; for, as the ancients in bygone times devoted their herbs of virtue to the gods, so catholicism, at a later period, dedicated them to the saints, and made their healing attributes an effect of this holy protection. Even still there lingers with us, in the rustic names of plants, traces of this pious nomenclaturenames so simply beautiful, that, like ballad poetry, they have been transmitted from generation to generation, and survive their age some centuries: thus, "virgin's bower," "ladies' bed-straw," star of Bethlehem," and "shepherd's staff," were in those days so many wayside hieroglyphics, reminiscent of the Nativity : while "passion flower," "holy thorn," " crosswort and veronica," "our lady's thistle," "St. Peter and St. John's wort," told no less patently the story of the Crucifixion. "Herb of the Trinity,' "Lent lily," pasque flower," "Christmas rose," ," referred to high events and seasons in the church: while "Jacob's ladder," manna grass," "Solomon's seal," and many others, recalled some incident of Hebrew his tory, just as "bishop's weed," "friar's cowl," cumstances where the recollected lore of some and "monk's hood," perpetuate the memory of old woman has been worth any doctor's skill monastic times to the herbalists of these. for miles around. Imagine, too, the additional Alas! where are they? Are those meagre- interest it would confer on Botany, its sister looking men and haggard women, "in tattered science. They would go hand in hand, throwweeds, with overwhelming brows, culling of ing mutual light upon each other, and opening simples," we sometimes meet with in our walks at every step fresh fields for practical research through woods and marsh-lands, the only fol- and active enjoyment. But while we advocate lowers of the gentle craft, that numbered queens the modest skill that would enable our fair and nobles for supporters? Then fairest hands, countrywomen to be more vitally useful in the for love of art and charity, busied themselves to circle of their families and poorer neighbours, seek for and prepare them. Now misery, ig- we by no means desire to see them neglecting norant and careless of their virtues, collects other accomplishments, or entering into the them for the purchase of a meal. It may be elaborate and expensive experiments which, in urged that the ladies of these times have not the the days we have quoted, when every lady same inducements for this study with those of learned "the powerful grace that dwells in old-that the increase of medical practitioners, herbs, plants, stones," occasionally characand the number of hospitals and dispensaries terized their recipes, and which, at another render such knowledge no longer necessary. time, we may probably recur to. And yet few of us have not been placed in cir If it be true that "a man's best things are nearest him," why are painters or poets ever at a loss for a subject either for the pencil or the pen? What more interesting group, for instance, could Louis Vyvyan have desired than that presented by himself and his fair pupil at the moment my story opens?-he, who in the prime of youth formed as noble a type of the intellectual man as might well be, guiding along the paths of his favourite art sweet Millicent Arden, now in the first bloom of girlhood, with her large beaming eyes and bright soft hair, whose clustering curls shaded the fair freshly-tinted cheek and slender throat of as lovely a form as ever flitted through a poet's dream. The window near which they were engaged opened on a smooth lawn that sloped suddenly towards the sunny masses of an oak wood at its foot, beyond which gleamed, blue and bright, the open sea. An hour-a happy hour-of that summer morning had already passed, in agreeable instruction on the one side, on the other in pleased attention; and in conversation that did not always relate to the fine arts. "This doesn't please me, Mr. Vyvyan. shall I do?" Vyvyan looked at the performance. you not rather hard to be pleased?" What "Are "Not with what you do ever. Now let that magic wand transform my hut into a palace!" "Of course I must bow to the spell of the superior spirit." And his pencil was busy for a few minutes with her drawing. "Is that better?" "Oh, charming!" He gave her a few technical directions, and she resumed her employment, but in a few minutes relapsed into idleness and reverie; then looking up, said, "Mr. Vyvyan, I am wishingwishing I were a genius," "Indeed! What do you understand by tha term?" "One to whom Nature has been very kind in her gifts." t "Then Miss Arden has surely no reason to complain. Nature has been no niggard in her dealings with you." "I didn't want to be complimented. I was telling you my real thoughts. What do you understand by the word genius?" "One whom Nature has loved not wisely, but too well; or, perhaps more properly, one to whom she has been an ostentatious rather than a kind giver." not a happy person." "That perhaps may be an open question. There are not only different degrees, but different orders of happiness." "But I should think it must he great happiness to be worshipped." "And do you think that is usually the fate of genius?” "Oh! surely. Yes." "I should say rather the reverse," replied neglect, or at best the ignorant applause of the Vyvyan, sadly; "I should say that slight and many, and the soul-abasing patronage of the few, was the reward of genius." Millicent's long lashes drooped. "That is not what experience has taught you, Mr. Vyvyan, is it?" "I" exclaimed Vyvyan; "I lay no claim to the title of genius. I am one of her humblest votaries; kneeling at her footstool, if so be I may but catch a single ray of her divine influence." "But every one says so. I heard Sir James Barker and Lord George talking of you to Papa, the other day; and they said there was no doubt you had decided genius." Vyvyan's lip quivered, and he bit it, as though in revenge for having betrayed his emotion. "Sir James or Lord George saying so will | luctance for the gratification of his mother's not make me one." "Oh! I didn't want their opinion to tell me what you were," said Millicent, warmly; forgetting, poor dear, the confession to be implied from her own words in the earlier part of the conversation. "We are not making much progress this morning," he said, glancing at the neglected drawing. "And I have made you angry," she replied. "That is scarcely possible," he said, in a low voice; adding, "in our relative position." A reply was rising to the lips of the pupil, which was checked by the entrance of a lady, who approached her; after first addressing herself to Madame de la Baume, the German governess, whose presence we have hitherto forgotten to notice; but who was there seated at the other end of the room, perfectly absorbed in the perusal of a French novel. Mrs. Arden then-for she it was-slightly bowing to Vyvyan, made some inquiries as to her daughter's progress. "It appears to me, Millicent has real talent, Mr. Vyvyan," she said, "only hitherto it has not received sufficient cultivation. If I could but see her excel as an artist, as Georgiana does as a musician, I should be fully satisfied. My great aim in the education of my daughters has been, that each in her own sphere should excel, without being a rival of her sister's." "You have certainly met with success in your endeavours, Mrs. Arden," said Vyvyan, his handsome mouth curling considerably. 66 "And now," pursued the lady, as I heard you last evening mention to Mr. Arden your intention of making some sketches in the neighbourhood of Rosemount; if Miss Arden and myself drive in that direction this afternoon, would you meet us there, and give her a few hints in a view I am anxious she should take of Sir James Barker's villa?" Millicent fidgetted a good deal, and Vyvyan's bow rendered a spoken acquiescence unnecessary; so whilst he is mounting his horse, and the ladies preparing for their drive, we will briefly explain some of the antecedents of the different parties. Louis Vyvyan-to begin with the hero-was the son of an officer of artillery who had died young, leaving his fair widow and their only child to the care of her father, an artist of mediocre fame and limited circumstance; for Captain Vyvyan's had been a love-match. Through his mother's unwearied efforts and unsparing selfdenial, Vyvyan had received an education far beyond what their slender means would otherwise have rendered possible. His grandfather was anxious he should follow his father's profession, but his mother always designed him for holy orders. Neither was, however, to see the fulfilment of their wishes; for at the age of fifteen he was left friendless and well nigh penniless. But the boy's heart did not fail him. Now he felt might be fulfilled his darling dream, which he had relinquished with the utmost re wishes. From his childhood he had manifested an extreme talent for painting, and fate seemed to favour him now, when he had turned to this as his means of support. Friends were raised up who helped him forward in his studies, to which he ardently devoted himself; and at the age of one-and-twenty he was considered one of the most promising young artists of the day. He had been introduced to Mr. Arden by a mutual friend, and had rendered him considerable assistance at a celebrated sale of paintings not long since; and partly through his love of being thought a man of taste, partly from a certain prepossession in the young artist's favour, Mr. Arden thereupon invited him down to Woodstock, a pretty cottage which he had lately purchased on the coast of Hants. There was another daughter besides the one whom we have already introduced to the reader: Georgiana was about a year younger than her sister, and in appearance rather a milk-and-water likeness of her; but in character they were totally dissimilar: Millicent was affectionate, imaginative, and impulsive-Georgiana goodnatured, shrewd, and worldly-wise. With a light step and beaming face, Millicent followed her mother to the carriage; and chatting on different subjects, a great part of the drive had passed very agreeably, when Mrs. Arden, in speaking of her daughter's drawing, observed, "I am particularly anxious, my dear, you should succeed in this view. Sir James, I am sure, will be gratified by your choosing Rosemount as a subject." Surely my performance is not to be displayed to him!" exclaimed the daughter. "Don't look so alarmed, my dear; Sir James, no doubt, will be a merciful critic." "O I have no desire he should spare me; that is not my feeling. But you seemed to imply that-that-in short, Mamma, that he would consider himself complimented. It seems such an absurd idea." And Millicent tried to laugh off her annoyance. "It would be a very poor return on my part," said her mother, "for your invariable candour, my dear child, were I not to say that I feel sure Sir James will only too gladly look on this little act as a personal compliment. You cannot be blind, my dearest Millicent, to his undisguised admiration of you; and hardly, I should think, can be displeased at it." "You don't suppose I am so weak and vain as to be gratified by that, Mamma; and Sir James quite an old fellow, too. He should be thinking of better things." "I could not have believed you so weak and childish as you now show yourself to be; indeed, Millicent, the idea of speaking of a man of three or four and thirty as old." "Sir James Barker was eight-and-thirty his last birthday, Mamma; for I looked in the Baronetage." "Well! six or seven and thirty-there is no great difference. I am quite ashamed of your folly. I should consider myself a very happy mother, and you a most fortunate girl, could I see you the wife of so estimable and sensible a man." "As to his sense, Mamma, he talks the Times' to Papa, and the Quarterly' to you; but I don't know where he can get all the nonsense that falls to my share. I'm sure I often think of the 'Song of the Shirt': 'It's oh! to be a slave Along with the barbarous Turk, Where a woman has never a soul, If this be Christian work.' Oh it must be some one immeasurably superior to Sir James whom I could ever like." "Well, my dear," said her mother, laughing, "since you have such exalted ideas, perhaps the young emperor of Austria may take compassion on you; or there may be a Russian grand duke yet to be disposed of." "It's not pride, Mamma; indeed it is not. I know I am not-I never should be-worthy of such a being." "I certainly never considered pride one of your failings," returned her mother; "and this reminds me-you must not be annoyed at what I am going to say, my love; but I wish I could see a little more of it in your composition sometimes. I do not exactly like your manner with Mr. Vyvyan. There should be a little more retenue-a little more distance maintained." Millicent coloured deeply. "But, Mamma, how am I to treat him?" she said, timidly. ་ "I am surprised, my love, at such a question. As an artist, of course. Consider the difference of your position-of your birth." "His father was an English officer, and mine is a London merchant," said Millicent, quietly. "His blood is as azure as ours, at least, Mamma." "You do not compare his position with your father's, I hope." "Papa has earned his," she replied; "Mr. Vyvyan's is yet to be won." "My dear Millicent, how you talk!" exclaimed her mother; "you are a great deal too interested in that young artist!" It was an injudicious speech of yours, wise Mrs. Arden, though there was a great deal of truth in it; but then it was one of those truths that are best left unspoken. Until that moment Millicent had always shunned the idea conveyed by her mother's words. The thought of a clandestine attachment was so foreign to her ingenuous nature, that however deep the impression made by Vyvyan's qualities on her heart, though he was daily becoming the standard and ideal by which all else was tried, yet what her feeling towards him was she studiously concealed from herself, and that they should ever be more to each other than now they were she never permitted to enter her imagination. But these words, seeming to hint at the discovery of her feelings, appeared to her in a measure to sanction them, inasmuch as they relieved her at once from the sense of dissimulation. She had not at present much time for reflection, as Vyvyan almost immediately appeared, to hand them from the carriage; and she was soon busily engaged, under his direction, in the sketch of Rosemount Villa. For some time Mrs. Arden sat near, occasionally interposing a remark, and the drawing went on steadily; but she was a botanist, and a tempting profusion of wild-flowers lured her to a short distance from her charge. Millicent sighed, "Do you think this makes a pretty sketch, Mr. Vyvyan?" "Well, I think it does just deserve that epithet. Yes, it is pretty." "I don't like it at all." Mrs. Arden at this moment approached them, holding in her hand a specimen of the beautiful little Neottia spiralis, and well pleased with her discovery. After duly admiring it, Millicent remarked how much prettier was its old English name-“Our Lady's tresses." "Yes," said Vyvyan, "it was a beautiful and affectionate thought that associated the flowers of the field with the unseen world; witnessing to us, as they do at every step, of their being formed after the pattern in the Mount." "Relics of Eden's bowers," said Millicent; "and how children always love flowers!" "Yes, and those beautiful souls who seem as though they never quite left the unearthly region of childhood. How faithfully the early painters render the flowers of their foreground, and how touchingly are they often made to speak the sentiment of the picture! And the architects of those days, how they wreathed their columns with loving when not servile imitations of these fair forms!" "Nor herb, nor flowret glistened there But was carved in the cloister-arches as fair,' again quoted Millicent; "you remember Sir Walter's descriptions of Melrose, Mr. Vyvyan? Why are there no such painters and architects now? Nature is not changed." "But we, having eyes, see not,' I fear," was the reply. "The more artificial the state of society in which we live, the less experimental must be our acquaintance with nature. I don't think a tour in the Highlands now and then can enable a man to grasp the idea of mountain scenery. Then again it always appears to me that the early artists had this advantage over us, that they were advancing along comparatively untrodden ground. New and even unexpected results continually crowned their labours, and, by reaction, the imagination was in them fertilized and brought forth abundantly. Between the artist of those days and these, there appears to me just the difference that exists between the first voyage to America, and the one made last week. A new world burst upon the gaze of the early mariner; a deformed reflection of the old meets the eye of the modern traveller." "Then we must not look for great men, now," said Millicent. "Nay," replied her companion, "I will not say that; for after all, the surest cause we can assign for the deficiency of our age is, that it has not pleased Heaven to create such. There may be no need." "But if such a one were to arise, I wonder how he would be received." "In no very flattering way at first, I should apprehend," said Vyvyan. "And why not?" "Oh! because can you not see, that he would almost inevitably be the founder of a new school? His expression of nature, his revelation of beauty would be different from those who had gone before him; otherwise he would be but an imitator of the ancients. But a great artist's is essentially a creative mind, and though there be but one spirit that pervades the great masters of all ages, yet the forms animated by it are manifold." "But at length he would be recognized." "Yes, at length; as all truths at length are." "And oh! what glory that would be!" "Do you think so? I think the glory would be in holding by Truth when all men despised it. In cherishing in our hearts and realizing with our hands a dream of beauty, which men would indeed acknowledge in its outward semblance to be such (as they must, if it be real beauty), but to whose subtle power and delicate spirit' the worldly mind should be blind and the earthly heart insensible." "My dear Millicent! you have placed the fountain a great deal too near the drawingroom window," interrupted Mrs. Arden at this moment, looking over her daughter's shoulder. "What can you have been thinking of?" "What, indeed?" said Millicent. "Mr. Vyvyan, how can I correct this?" It was late when they returned home, and Sir James Barker was to dine with them. Millicent's hand withdrew from the lock of the drawing-room door, as she heard his voice within, in conversation with her father. The idea of meeting him again was so very disagreeable after her conversation with her mother, and perhaps after her conversation with somebody else. So she rushed up stairs at once, to lose, in the duties of the toilette, a certain trouble some impression of happiness being very near to her, and a mighty barrier interposed between. Georgie looked in, on her way down stairs. "You are to make yourself very agreeable to Sir James you know, Millicent. I hope you have prepared your part. I'm sure I am not at all up in mine. I shall have to entertain your intellectual favourite." "Perhaps I shall relieve you of the trouble," thought Millicent. "Georgie, that's a good girl, don't delay me, I am so late!" And Millicent rang energetically. If her toilette was hasty, it was unusually becoming; and lovely as she looked on her entrance to the drawing-room, no one could have suspected the shrinking reluctance with which that entrée was made. Vyvyan just raised his eyes for a moment, and then continued his employment of pulling down and setting up the men on a marble chesstable. Sir James had an offering to make of a choice bouquet, containing a certain rare exotic, which Millicent had remarked to him she admired above all the flowers at the Chiswick fete that year. Comments on this, and its praises-in which Vyvyan joined with a degree of malicious fervour-had not subsided when dinner was announced. Just as they had reached the dining-room door, Millicent looked back. "Oh, Georgie dear! my bouquet! I left it on the table. Bring it to me, pray." Georgie's departure and return produced some little confusion in the arrangement even of that small party; and when it subsided, Vyvyan found himself seated between Millicent and Madame de la Baume, and Georgie by the side of the Baronet. Vyvyan was a good deal amused, so was his fair neighbour; however, not to annoy the lady of the house more than was inevitable, he devoted himself through the first part of the dinner to Madame, and she not being a very accomplished English scholar, he found it necessary to entertain her entirely in French. Millicent was drawn in now and then, and Mrs. Arden was not displeased Sir James should have an opportunity of hearing the purity of her accent and the fluency with which she conversed in that language. So much did this tend to restore her complacency, that she almost forgave Vyvyan the share he might be supposed to have in her daughter's wilfulness. When, however, he attempted to join in the more general conversation, Millicent chafed, and he laughed to observe how slightly Sir James received his acutest observations, how loftily he ignored his cleverest suggestions; till rather tired of the part of Monsieur Detrop, he betook himself to his fair pupil, in whom he found a more willing auditor to his opinions than in the gentleman on the other side. The French windows of the drawing-room were open when the ladies entered, and Millicent stepped out on the dewy lawn; lifted a drooping rose, plucked a spray of myrtle and another of verbena, inhaled the perfume of an orange-tree in full bloom that was placed on the terrace steps, then turned aside to a bosquet of evergreens |