Anna was ingenuous, unreserved, and, if I might judge by the rosy blushes that suffused her sweet face, and the manner in which she extricated herself from my protecting arms, I believe I must add, she deemed herself indiscreet in that she had been so unreserved and ingenuous.
"We can now converse more calmly, Jack," the dear creature resumed, after she had erased the signs of emotion from her cheeks--"more calmly, if not more sensibly." "The wisdom of Solomon is not half so precious as the words I have just heard--and as for the music of spheres--" "It is a melody that angels only enjoy." "And art not thou an angel ?" "No, Jack, only a poor, confiding girl; one instinct with the affections and weaknesses of her sex, and one whom it must be your part to sustain and direct.

If we begin by calling each other by these superhuman epithets, we may awake from the delusion sooner than if we commence with believing ourselves to be no other than what we really are.

I love you for your kind, excellent, and generous heart, Jack; and as for these poetical beings, they are rather proverbial, I believe, for having no hearts at all." As Anna mildly checked my exaggeration of language--after ten years of marriage I am unwilling to admit there was any exaggeration of idea--she placed her little velvet hand in mine again, smiling away all the severity of the reproof.
"Of one thing, I think you may rest perfectly assured, dear girl," I resumed, after a moment's reflection.

"All my old opinions concerning expansion and contraction are radically changed.

I have carried out the principle of the social-stake system in the extreme, and cannot say that I have been at all satisfied with its success.