We were alone; no familiar faces no accustomed objects reminded me of myself of that self which had so struggled, so sinned, and so suffered. I gazed on the beautiful works of God; I raised my eyes from the green sward on which we trod, to the soft blue sky, and my soul was melted within me. I listened to Edward's words, and in that blessed solitude nothing disturbed the silent echo which his voice of music left upon my ear. As I closed my eyes in sleep, I blessed him; as I opened them again I beheld him; and when he knelt in prayer, I knelt too, and said, "God be merciful to me a sinner!"

"Ellen, my love, shall you be ready to set off at nine tomorrow? We must be at Elmsley by six. In tears, Ellen? What is the matter, my love? Now, really, this is childish.” "I cannot bear to go I cannot bear to leave this place. I shall never return to it if I leave it now. In the murmur of the river in the songs of the birds, in the rustling of the leaves, there has been all day a voice of lamentation which has haunted me; something mournful which has sounded to me like an eternal adieu. I have tried to exclude these thoughts, but they return in spite of me; and when you spoke of going, your words

"My dearest Ellen, I really cannot listen to such absurd nonsense. You know how much I admire your love of the beauties of nature - how much I appreciate your eloquence in describing them; but when all this degenerates into sentimentality, I own I cannot stand it."

"Dearest Edward, for you everything in nature wears a smile, and I thank God that it is so. You have never had cause to shrink from what is pure and bright and beautiful, with an aching heart and a self-accusing spirit."

As I raised my eyes to Edward's face, I was startled at its expression. There was a sternness in it which made me tremble.

"Ellen," he said, "listen to me, and mark my words. ́ Either a morbid sensibility, which I despise, or a mawkish affectation, which I detest, injures the tone of your mind,

and the truth of your character. Never let me hear again of wounded spirits, and self-reproaches, and poetic sufferings. When you were a girl you almost frightened away my love for you by these mysterious exclamations, and I hate the very sound of them. Do not let me hear that my wife cannot look upon the face of nature with a calm and hopeful eye, or on her past life with a self-approving conscience. I know there is no reality in such language, God knows, I should not speak so calmly if I could suppose there was; but as you value my love, or dread my anger, never use expressions again which in your mouth are senseless."

"You are severe," I said, with an attempt at a smile, which made my mouth quiver; "your wife should indeed be perfect, for it is evident that her faults would meet with no mercy from you."

"You think me harsh, Ellen? Perhaps I am.

But look

here; there are four lines in this book (and he took up a volume of Metastasio's plays which was lying on the table), which make up, in my opinion, for all the sentimental nonsense it contains." He pointed to these lines:

"La gloria nostra

E geloso cristallo, e debil canna

Ogni aura ch'inchina, ogni respiro ch'appanna."

"My feelings are, perhaps, exaggerated, but I own it fairly to you. I can conceive that, as a woman's reputation might suffer from trifles light as air, so a man's love might vanish from what would appear but a slight cause for such an effect. You were about to speak, Ellen, and you have checked the words that were rising to your lips, but I read them in your eyes, and I will answer them. It is not because my love is weak, that a fault in you would seem to me as a crime in another. It is because, to discover that you were not pure and good and true, beyond any other woman in the world, would be so dreadful to me, that I doubt if in that overthrow of all my pride and my happiness, my love could survive. My pride, I say, as well as my happiness, for I am proud of you, my beloved wife, when I look at your dark eyes -at your

clear brow at your curling lip, and feel that no word has ever passed those lips which an angel might not have uttered, nor any, eye has ever been raised to yours but with respect and affection. They are glorious gifts, Ellen, precious treasures which you possess an innocent mind and a spotles's reputation. Beware how you accustom yourself to talk, for effect, of remorse and self-reproach. They are too dark and too bitter things to be trifled with."

"True," I answered, "they are too dark and too bitter subjects for us to discuss. You are right. Forgive me my folly. I shall not fall again into the same error.'

And back into the deepest recesses of a swelling heart were thrust regrets, fears, hopes, which were thus commanded never again to trouble the smooth surface of married life. Henceforward I was ordered to stand like a painted sepulchre, in all the outward form and show of virtue, nor ever dare to utter in Edward's hearing that life was not always fair, its memories sweet, and its prospects bright. The dream was over, and its danger too, for in its happiness my soul had grown weak; it had poured forth its love, and in the rushing tide of feeling the secret of its misery was escaping it. Now the barrier was raised again - now the mental separation was begun; for as we drove out of sight of Hillscombe on the following day, with that self-command which, while the heart is aching, teaches the tongue to utter some common-place remark in an indifferent voice and careless manner, I turned to Edward and asked him some trifling question, while at that very moment burning tears stood in my eyes, and a passionate farewell was uttered in my soul.

One of the strangest feelings in life, is that of gliding into a new state of things with a kind of matter-of-course facility which we do not beforehand imagine to be possible. This struck me much, when, on the day of our arrival at Elmsley, I found myself once more seated at dinner in that well-known dining-room, in which every bit of furniture, from the picture of a certain Admiral Middleton, which stood over the chimneypiece with a heap of blue cannon-balls by his side, to the

heavy, sweeping, red curtains in which I had often hid myself in a game of hide-and-seek, was as familiar to me as the face of a friend. Here, in the house where in despair I had once refused Edward, I was sitting as his bride, and bowing in return for the healths which were drunk in honour of my marriage; and Henry - Henry, who had so often threatened, upbraided, once almost cursed me greeted me now with a smile, and the bridal nosegay of white camellias and jessamine which I held in my hand was gathered and given by him. Alice, also, the child of Bridman cottage, the tradesman's daughter, was sitting by Mr. Middleton in all the quiet dignity of her natural manner. For the first time she was dressed in an evening gown of white muslin, and a wreath of shining holly was in her hair. Mr. Middleton seemed particularly happy; he had obtained the great object of all his wishes; he had married me to Edward. Edward's return for the county was next to certain; and such was the softening influence of this state of things that he asked Henry to drink wine with him, and nodded to him good-humouredly as he did so. Mrs. Middleton, on the contrary, looked anxious and careworn, and once or twice I saw her eyes filled with tears, as she turned them alternately upon Alice and me.

In the evening Henry spoke to me but little, and nothing could be more amiable and gentle than his manner. He carefully avoided every subject that could have been painful to

me,

and whatever he said was soothing. He was out of spirits, but there was no bitterness in his depression. In trifles which will not bear recital, by some scarcely perceptible change of tone, by an answer given in the right place, by a look of assent when no word was uttered, he gave what at that moment I wanted-sympathy, and that silent, constant, unobtrusive sympathy, fell like oil on troubled waters.

"Does she like Elmsley?" I asked, as Alice sat opposite to us, earnestly reading a book which she had just taken out of the bookcase.

"I hardly know. The kind of life she leads here, quiet as it seems to us, is so new to her that I fancy it almost oppresses

her. She has not been quite like herself since she came here. I cannot call it a cloud, but a shade has sometimes passed over her face whose expression formerly never used to vary. Do you remember the first day you ever saw her?"

"Don't I!-the old fountain and the blooming children: what a picture that was! But look at her now; is she not like what our fancy, aided by the loveliest conceptions of genius, presents to our thoughts, when we think of her whom all generations call blessed?"

I murmured in a low tone, more to myself than to him, the beautiful appellations of the blessed Virgin-"Lily of Edenmystic rose star of the morning!"

Henry added, in as low a voice, and without looking at me, "Notre Dame de bon secours.'

I understood him, and acknowledged to myself the truth of his prediction, that there was one share in my soul which nothing could ever rob him of, and that was that undefinable communion of thought and feeling, which an extraordinary fatality of circumstances, and a natural congeniality of mind, had created between us.

The next day there was nothing but bustle and excitement in the house, and in the neighbourhood. The polling was to begin at twelve o'clock that morning; and, at an early hour, we all drove to the town of -, to take up our quarters for the day in the drawing-room of the inn which belonged to my uncle, and the landlord of which was one of Edward's staunch supporters.

The loud cries of "Middleton for ever!" the enthusiastic cheering as we drove along; the occasional groans and hisses, which were too feeble to depress our spirits; the flags; the music; the bustle; Edward's heightened colour and animated countenance; the interest felt and expressed by all those about us; the eagerness of contest; the anxiety for success; the anticipated triumph over the enemy. all this together worked me up into such a state of excitement, that I could