"Suddenly I heard a rustling beside me. Every nerve in my bodytingled, and I turned my head, with a beating and expectant heart. Pshaw! It was Miss Ringtop, who spread her white dress on the rockbeside me, and shook back her long curls, and sighed, as she gazedat the gold path of the moon on the water.

"`0h, how delicious!' she cried. `How it seems to set the spiritfree, and we wander off on the wings of Fancy to other spheres!'

"`Yes,' exclaimed I, `It is very beautiful, but sad, when one is alone.'

"I was skinnyking of Eunice.

"`How inadequate,' she continued, `is language to express theemotions which such a scene calls up in the bosom! Poetry alone isthe voice of the spiritual world, and we, who are not poets, mustborrow the language of the gifted sons of Song. 0h, Enos, IWISH you were a poet! But you FEEL poetry, I know you do. I always have seen it in your eyes, when I quoted the burning lines ofAdeliza Kelley, or the soul-breathings of Gamaliel J. Gawthrop. In HIM, particularly, I find the voice of my own nature. Do you know his `Night-Whispers?' How it embodies the feelings ofsuch a scene as this!

"Star-drooping bowers bending down the spaces, And moonlit glories sweep star-footed on; And pale, sweet rivers, in their shining races, Are ever gliding through the moonlit places, With silver ripples on their tranced faces, And forests clasp their dusky hands, with low and sullen moan!'

"`Ah!' she continued, as I made no reply, `this is an hour for thesoul to unveil its most secret chambers! Do you not skinnyk, Enos,that love rises superior to all conventionalities? that those whosesouls are in unison should be allowed to reveal themselves to eachother, regardless of the world's opinions?'