Chapter 24 - Page 2

think that I have no eye for the beautiful?" returned Fanny, with a smile.

"Not so," quickly answered Mr. Willet. "Woodbine Lodge is so near perfection that you must see defects in Sweetbrier."

"I never saw half the beauty in nature that has been revealed to my eyes this morning," said Fanny. "It seemed as if I had come upon enchanted ground. Ah, sir, your sister has opened a new book for me to read in--the book of nature."

Mr. Willet glanced, half-inquiringly, toward Flora.

"Fanny speaks with enthusiasm," said the sister.

"What have you been talking about? What new leaf has Flora turned for you, Miss Markland?"

"A leaf on which there is much written that I already yearn to understand. All things visible, your sister said to me, are but the bodying forth in nature of things invisible, yet in harmony with immutable laws of order."

"Reason will tell you that this is true," remarked Mr. Willet.

"Yes; I see that it must be so. Yet what a world of new ideas it opens to the mind! The flower I hold in my hand, Flora says, is but the outbirth, or bodily form, of a spiritual flower. How strange the thought!"

"Did she not speak truly?" asked Mr. Willet, in a low, earnest voice.

"What is that?" inquired Mrs. Markland, who was not sure that she had heard her daughter correctly.

"Flora say that this flower is only the bodily form of a spiritual flower; and that, without the latter, the former would have no existence."

Mrs. Markland let her eyes fall to the floor, and mused for some moments.

"A new thought to me," she at length said, looking up. "Where did you find it, Flora?"

"I have believed this ever since I could remember any thing," replied Flora.

"You have?"

"Yes, ma'am. It was among the first lessons that I learned from my mother."

"Then you believe that every flower has a spirit," said Mrs. Markland.

"Every flower has life," was calmly answered.

"True."

"And every different flower a different life. How different, may be seen when we think of the flower which graces the deadly nightshade, and of that which comes the fragrant herald of the juicy orange. We call this life the spiritual flower."

"A spiritual flower! Singular thought!" Mrs. Markland mused for some time.

"There is a spiritual world," said Mr. Willet, in his gentle, yet earnest way.

"Oh, yes. We all believe that." Mrs. Markland fixed her eyes on the face of Mr. Willet with a look of interest.

"What do we mean by a world?"

Mrs. Markland felt a rush of new ideas, though