Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/584

16, 1860.]

will think it odd, not to say reprehensible, and a fatal declension from heroics, that Miss Rose Jocelyn should devote the better part of the day following her love-avowal, to dog-breaking; and I doubt not that you wonder how a young man could be inspired by such a person with transcendent, with holy, and with melting images. It was that Evan felt the soul of Rose, and felt it akin to his own. Her tastes, her habits, could not obscure the bright and perfect steadfastness which was in her, and which Evan worshipped more than her face; and indeed that firm truth of her character gave a charm to all her actions. Among girls you have creatures of the morning, of the night, and of the twilight. Rose was of Aurora’s train: soft when you caught her, shy in your shadow; capable of melting wholly to your kiss, but untroubled, and light-limbed, and brisk, a fresh young maid when you withdrew the charm. Her friend Jenny Graine flitted bat-like round William’s figure, and Juliana Bonner loved sombrely. There are some who neither thoroughly sleep nor thoroughly waken, but dream while they walk, and toss while they lie. Rose was a cool sleeper, and the light flowed into her open eyes as into a house that lifts the blinds. Slightly, perhaps, even while dog-breaking, a little thought would thrill her, and move a quivering corner in her lips. but it passed like a happy bird from the bough, and was as innocent under heaven.

An Irish retriever-pup of the Shannon breed, Pat, by name, was undergoing tuition on the sward close by the kennels, Rose’s hunting-whip being passed through his collar to restrain erratic propensities. The particular point of instruction