Spring just opening into summer--morning just approaching noon--girlhood just ripening into womanhood, and hope just verging on fruition.

She's a sweet creature! but why didn't you make her black hair ?' 'I thought light hair would suit her better.

You see I have made her blue-eyed and plump, and fair and rosy.' 'Upon my word--a very Hebe! I should fall in love with her if I hadn't the artist before me.

Sweet innocent! she's thinking there will come a time when she will be wooed and won like that pretty hen-dove by as fond and fervent a lover; and she's thinking how pleasant it will be, and how tender and faithful he will find her.' 'And perhaps,' suggested I, 'how tender and faithful she shall find him.' 'Perhaps, for there is no limit to the wild extravagance of Hope's imaginings at such an age.' 'Do you call that, then, one of her wild, extravagant delusions ?' 'No; my heart tells me it is not.

I might have thought so once, but now, I say, give me the girl I love, and I will swear eternal constancy to her and her alone, through summer and winter, through youth and age, and life and death! if age and death must come.' He spoke this in such serious earnest that my heart bounded with delight; but the minute after he changed his tone, and asked, with a significant smile, if I had 'any more portraits.' 'No,' replied I, reddening with confusion and wrath.
But my portfolio was on the table: he took it up, and coolly sat down to examine its contents.
'Mr.Huntingdon, those are my unfinished sketches,' cried I, 'and I never let any one see them.' And I placed my hand on the portfolio to wrest it from him, but he maintained his hold, assuring me that he 'liked unfinished sketches of all things.' 'But I hate them to be seen,' returned I.