after sunrise, the first morning of my visit, when I timidly opened the garden gate and stood in full view of these glories.  All was dewy, glittering, fragrant, musical as a morn in Eden.  For a while I stood still, in a kind of enchantment.  Venturing, at length, a few steps forward, gazing eagerly from side to side, I was suddenly arrested by the most marvellously beautiful object my eyes had ever seen,—­no other than the little Button-Rose of our story!  So small, so perfect!  It filled my infant sense with its loveliness.  It grew in a very pretty china vase, as if more precious than the other flowers.  Several blossoms were fully expanded, and many tiny buds were showing their crimson tips.  As I stood lost in rapture over this little miracle of beauty, a humming-bird, the smallest of its fairy tribe, darted into sight, and hung for an instant, its ruby crest and green and golden plumage flashing in the sun, over my new-found treasure.  Were it not that the emotions of a few such moments are stamped indelibly on the memory, we should have no conception in maturer life of the intenseness of childish enjoyment.  Oh for one drop of that fresh morning dew, that pure nectar of life, in which I then bathed with an unconscious bliss!  Methinks I would give many days of sober, thoughtful, rational enjoyment for one hour of the eager rapture which thrilled my being as I stood in that enchanted garden, gazing upon my little rose, and that gay creature of the elements, that winged blossom, that living fragment of a rainbow, that glanced and quivered and murmured over it.

But, dear as the Button-Rose is to my memory, I should hardly think of obtruding it on the notice of others, were it not for a little tale of human interest connected with it.  While I yet stood motionless in the ecstasy of my first wonder, a young man and woman entered the garden, chatting and laughing in a very lively manner.  The lady was my Aunt Caroline, then in the fresh bloom of seventeen; the young man I had never seen before.  Seeing me standing alone in the walk, my aunt called me; but as I shrunk away shy and blushing at sight of the stranger, she came forward and took hold of my hand.

“This is our little Katy, Cousin Harry,” said she, leading me towards him.

“Our little Katy’s most obedient!” replied he, taking off his broad-brimmed straw hat, and making a flourishing bow nearly to the ground.

“Don’t be afraid of him, Katy dear; he’s nobody,” said my aunt, laughing.

At these encouraging words I glanced up at the merry pair, and thought them almost as pretty as the rose and hummingbird.  My Aunt Caroline’s beauty was of a somewhat peculiar character,—­if beauty that can be called which was rather spirit, brilliancy, geniality of expression, than symmetrical mould of features.  The large, full eye was of the deepest violet hue; the finely arched forehead, a little too boldly cast for feminine beauty, was shaded by masses of rich chestnut hair; the mouth,—­but