34 BERTHA. 



temper. There was nothing to alarm a young girl's heart in 

 such a suitor, and Bertha, who shrunk timidly from more violent 

 demonstrations of affection in others, found repose and not 

 disquiet in the placid kindliness of her good-natured admirer. 

 But Mr. Van Aulen was not destitute of a certain degree of 

 perception in the more trivial traits of character, while he 

 possessed a sort of Dutch doggedness which always led him 

 straight to the fulfilment of his designs. He knew Bertha's 

 passion for flowers, and he counted upon this taste as a means 

 of determining the liking which he believed she felt for him. 

 The result showed that he was not deficient in craft and tact. 



Not far from the simple and unpretending abode in which 

 Bertha's early years had been spent, was the magnificent 

 domain of her wealthy lover. On a certain day in the early 

 summer, he proposed a party to visit his grounds and view the 

 improvements which had been made during the past winter. 

 Bertha was like a happy child among them, and after a gay 

 stroll through wooded lawns and amid luxurious shrubbery, the 

 company found themselves in a close walk, which opened upon 

 a superb conservatory filled with the rarest exotics from all 

 parts of the world. Others might admire the architectural 

 beauty of the building, the art with which it had been reared 

 against, and almost within, the lofty hill which kept off the chill 

 air from the river, and the mechanical skill of its whole arrange- 

 ment. But Bertha saw nothing of all these ; she plunged among 

 the flowers like a humming-bird, for never had she seen such 

 quantities and of such exquisite varieties. Long after the 

 others had wandered off to some new object of interest, she 



