Just then the house-door opened:  some one walked down the veranda steps and came rapidly in her direction.

“I have been looking everywhere for you,” cried Colonel Pinckney; and he seized both her hands:  “no one seemed to know where you had gone.”

The bright color rose in her cheeks, and in spite of her resolve her eyes beamed with delight.  She murmured inarticulately that she had told Adele, then relapsed into silence.

“I have to implore your forgiveness for neglecting to obey as to the advertisement, but the truth is——­” and he hesitated—­“I have a plan.  It may not meet with your concurrence,” he added, “but I wished to submit it before you made other and irrevocable arrangements.”

“You have thought of some position for me?” she forced herself to say, all the bloom and delight vanishing from her face.

“Yes.  I know an individual who wants precisely such a person as you are, for—­a wife.”

“Colonel Pinckney!” she exclaimed indignantly.

“Do forgive me, dear Miss Featherstone.  I am such a confounded poltroon”—­and he seized her hands again—­“that I dare not risk my fate; but that person is”—­and he looked down upon her, his heart beating so violently that he could scarcely speak—­“that person is—­myself!”

Of what happened then Mrs. Pinckney, roused by her brother-in-law’s return, was cognizant, for actually, in the open air, with her blue eyes bent eagerly upon them, he clasped the governess in his arms.  “It is a fact accomplished!” cried the fair widow with a sigh, and sank back upon her pillows.

THE HOME OF THE GENTIANS.

  There is a lonesome hamlet of the dead
    Spread on a high ridge, up above a lake—­
  A quiet meadow-slope, unfrequented,
    Where in the wind a thousand wild flowers shake.

  But most of all, the delicate gentian here,
    Serenely blue as the sweet eyes of Hope,
  Doth prosper in th’ untroubled atmosphere,
    Where wide its fringed eyelids love to ope.

  You cannot set a foot upon the ground
    On warm September noons, in this old croft,
  But there some satiny blossom crushed is found,
    Swift springing up to look again aloft.

  Prized! sung of poets! sought for singly where
    Adventurous feet may hardly dare to climb! 
  Here, scattered lavishly and without care,
    In all the sweet luxuriance of their prime.

  Ah! how the yellow-thighed, brown-coated bee
    Dives prodigally into those blue deeps
  Of glistening, odorless satin fair to see,
    And soon forgetting wherefore, tranced, sleeps!

  And how the golden butterflies skim over,
    And poise, all fondly, on these lifted lips,
  Leaving the riches of the sweet red clover
    For the blue gentians’ fine and fairy tips!

Beautiful wildlings, proud, refined and shy! 
Mysteries ye are, have been, and yet shall be: 
The secrets of your being in ye lie,
And no man yet hath found their hidden key.