Again did the seraph look down on earth, again did he gaze on the favoured child of joy. The ecstatic sense of bliss he had marked before had subsided into happiness as full, as pure, as thrilling, yet chastened in its fulness. There were young and lovely forms around her; a mothers love has added its unutterable sweetness to her lot. He looked on her heart, and marked how sweetly and beautifully its every dream, its every hope, had bloomed to full maturity. How softly its light cares were soothed by sympathy and love on earth, and trust and hope in heaven; how earnestly it sought to pour back its every gift into the gracious hand from which it sprung, and lead her children as herself, to the threshold of Eternal joy. He looked on that unveiled heart, as, wandering with those she loved amid the glorious shrines of nature, she found in every leaf, and stream, and bird, and flower somewhat to bid her children love, and add to the inexhaustible spring of poesie and genius which rested still within, and gave new zest, new brightness to her simplest joy.

He gazed on her alone, amidst the books she loved, the studies her genius craved; he read the deep, pure, shadowless joy it was to feel that gift had done its work, and sent its pure and lucid flame amidst the unthinking crowd, and carried blessings with it; that its rich music had left its impression on many a thoughtless heart; had shed sweet balm over hours of sad, lonely sickness; had spoken its soft sympathy to the diseased and sorrowing mind, and sent new, brighter, purer joyance to the young, eager, and imaginative soul. It had done these things, and was it marvel she rejoiced?

Zephon gazed; but the shadow passed not from his wings, and hastily and silently he turned once more to seek the kindred essence. The whelming woe had given place to a strangely complicated mass of cross and twisted strings, which tightly fettered down each glorious gift, each cherished hope, each fond aspiring, yet gave them space to throb, and live, and whisper still. The bright undying flame of genius never seemed to burn with mere o’er-sweeping power; yet the flashes that it sent but scorched the heart that held them. Hope still was there, sending forth her lovely blossoms; but to be nipped and blighted ’neath the close and icy strings that stretched above them. There were chains upon that spirit, binding it to earth, when most it longed to spring on high; and the shell, the lovely shell which held it was dwindling ’neath its withering spell. The seraph marked the tension of each vein and nerve, and pulse, till it seemed as if the very next breath of emotion, however faint, would snap them in twain; the painful effort to restrain the irritation of bodily and mental suffering, the agony of remorse which the slightest ebullition of impatience caused.

He beheld her hour by hour, the centre of a noisy group of children, possessing not one attribute to call forth that torrent of love and tenderness with which her soul was filled. He marked the starting of each nerve, the hounding of each pulse, at every shout of rude and noisy revelry, the inward fever attending every effort to restrain and instruct. He saw her, when midnight enwrapped the earth, alone for a brief space, in a poor and comfortless room; the bright visions of genius thronging tumultuously on mind and brain; incongruous and wild, from there having been so long pent up in darkness and woe. He beheld the effort to give the burning fancies vent; the utter failing of the mortal frame; the prostration of all power, save that which yet would lift up heart and hands in the low cry: “Father, it is thy will; I know not wherefore; yet, oh! yet, if Thou willest it, it is, it must be well!” and he heard unnumbered harps bear up that voice of Faith, in melody overpowering in its deep rich tones. He marked the spirits of light and loveliness still hovering around, moulding those burning tears into precious gems, changing each quivering sigh to songs of glory; yet still his sight seemed strangely dim, the shadow passed not from his wings.

“And man, her brother man, hath he no love, no tenderness, no thoughts for sorrow such as hers?” the seraph asked; “knows he not of the precious gifts, the gentle virtues that frail shell enfolds? Wherefore is she thus lone?—hath man no answering chord?”

“Man sees not the interior of that heart, as thou dost,” rejoined the Hierarch. “When through disobedience sin entered yon beautiful world, man’s eyes became darkened towards his fellows, and but too often his rebellious and perverted mind wilfully refuses knowledge of his brother, lest sympathy should bid him share the griefs of others. In some envy, foul envy, the base passions which first darkened earth with death, wilfully blinds, lest the genius and the virtue of the poor should be exalted above the rich; in others it is ignorance, contempt, neglect, spring from that rank poison selfishness, or the loathsome weed indifference, which flings a thick veil over others’ woe, and so confines the gaze—it sees no farther than itself. To mortal vision yon gentle being is composed and calm. Man marks but the outward............