A wild and merry chase she led her grave instructor. Morning, noon, or
night, she was always ready. Under the blue sky, breathing the pure air,
treading the green turf familiar from her infancy, she could not be
otherwise than happy; but when was superadded to this the companionship
of a mind vigorous, cultivated, and refined, she enjoyed it with a keen
and intense delight. Nowhere else did her soul so entirely unfold to
the genial light of this new sun which had suddenly mounted above her
horizon. Nowhere else did the freshness and fulness and splendor of life
dilate her whole being with a fine ecstasy.

And what was the end of all this? Just what you would have supposed. She
had led a life of simple, unbounded love and trust,--a buoyant, elastic
gladness,--a dream of sunshine. No gray cloud had ever lowered in her
sky, no thunderbolt smitten her joys, no winter rain chilled her warmth.
Only the white fleeciness of morning mist had flitted sometimes over her
summer-sky, deepening the blue. Little cooling drops had fluttered
down through the leafiness, only to span her with a rainbow in the glory
of the setting sun. But the time had come. From the deep fountains of
her heart the stone was to be rolled away. The secret chord was to be
smitten by a master-hand,--a chord which, once stirred, may never cease
to quiver.

At first Ivy worshipped very far off. Her friend was to her the
embodiment of all knowledge and goodness and greatness. She marvelled to
see him so at home in what was to her so strange. Every word that fell
from his lips was an oracle. She secretly contrasted him with all
the men she had ever met, to the utter discomfiture of the latter.
Washington, the Apostle Paul, and Peter Parley were the only men of the
past or present whom she considered at all worthy to be compared with
him; and in fact, if these three men and Felix Clerron had all stood