her eyes bright as they were for such a look � it was the least that our poor could do to give her heart for a great many of them there was the more danger of this inasmuch as the footing on which we all associated at was widely different from that of conventional society while us to the soft affections of the golden age it seemed to any individual of either sex to fall in love with any other regardless of what would elsewhere be judged suitable and prudent accordingly the tender passion was very among us in various degrees of or but mostly passing away with the state of things that had given it origin this was all well enough but for a girl like and a woman like to one another in their lore of a man like was likely to be no child s play had i been as cold hearted as i sometimes thought myself nothing would have interested me more than to witness the play of passions that must thus have been but in honest truth i would really have gone far to save at least from the catastrophe in which such a drama would be apt to had now grown to be a very pretty girl and still kept and and daily putting on some new charm which you no sooner became sensible of than you thought it worth all that she had previously possessed so vague and without substance as she had come to us it seemed as if we could see nature out a woman before our very eyes and yet had only a more sense of the mystery of a woman s soul and frame yesterday her cheek was pale � to day it had a bloom s smile like a baby s first one a wondrous novelty her and short affected me with a kind of playful pathos which was as absolutely a sensation as ever i experienced after she had been a month or two at her animal spirits high and kept her pretty constantly in a state of and her to far more bodily activity than she had yet strength to endure she was very fond of play the ing with the other girls out of doors there is hardly another sight in the world so pretty as that of a company of young girls almost women grown at play and so giving themselves up to their airy impulse that their barely touch the ground girls are and more than boys more and regardless of rule and limit with an ever shifting variety breaking continually into new modes of fun yet with a harmonious propriety through all their steps their voices appear free as the wind but keep with a strain of music to us young men and boys on the other hand play according to recognized law old games permitting no of fancy but with scope enough for the outbreak of savage instincts for young or old in play or in earnest man is prone to be a brute especially is it delightful to see a vigorous young girl run a race with her head thrown back her limbs moving more than they need and an air between that of a bird and a young but s peculiar charm in a foot race was the weakness and with which she ran growing up without exercise except to her poor little fingers she had never yet acquired the perfect use of her legs setting forth therefore as if no rival less swift than could with her she ran and often tumbled on the grass such an incident � though it seems too slight to think of � was a thing to laugh at but which brought the water into one s eyes and lingered in the memory after far greater joys and sorrows were swept out of it as s life as i beheld it was full of trifles that me in just this way when she had come to he quite at home among us i used to fancy that played more and more mischief than any other girl in the community for example i once heard foster in a very voice threatening to three round s neck and chain her to a post because she with some other young people had upon a load of hay and caused it to slide off the cart how she made her peace i never knew but very soon afterwards i saw old with his hands round s waist swinging her to and fro and finally her on one of the oxen to take her first lessons in riding she met with terrible in her efforts to milk a cow she let the poultry into the garden she spoilt whatever part of the dinner she took in charge she broke she our biggest into the well and � except with her needle and those little wooden instruments for � was as a member of society as any young lady in the land there was no other sort of about her yet everybody was kind to everybody loved her and laughed at her to her and did not laugh behind her back everybody would have given her half of his last crust or the bigger share of his cake these were pretty certain indications that we were all conscious of a pleasant weakness in the girl and considered her not quite able to look after her own interests or fight her battle with the world and � perhaps because he had been the means of introducing to her new thb abode � appeared to recognize her as his own especial charge her simple careless childish flow of spirits often made me sad she seemed to me like a butterfly at play in a flickering bit of sunshine and it for a broad and eternal summer we sometimes hold mirth to a than sorrow � it must show od cause or 