"
From the first moment that Clarence Delwood had set his eye upon the
Sea-flower, an interest which he had never known before had been
awakened within him. It may be said that it was a weakness, that he had
always looked upon women as mere butterflies, but owing to early
circumstances, he having been bereft of his mother in infancy, never
having known the blessings of a sister's society, he was not to be
condemned for the impressions which a gaudily attired attendant had left
upon his mind as he grew up into boyhood. But as he listened to the
Sea-flower, as she told him of her home in the sea, of the music of the
glorious billows, companions of her childhood, filling the very soul
with nature's beauty and sublimity, he looked upon her, as if fearful
she might prove an "Undine," and he would not have been taken by
surprise had her spiritual face faded calmly from beneath his gaze, to
join her sister nymphs of ocean.
"And you will soon return to your island home?" he asked, as a thought
of the warmth with which she had expressed herself to a stranger, bade
her pause in her enthusiasm with downcast eye.
"Yes, I shall soon return," she answered joyously, "and yet I shall
remember Boston with feelings of pleasure, for I have spent happy
hours here.
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