un of love and
happiness, as we stroll among the flowers, beneath the trees of our
joint home, drive away the troubled memories of this heart-chilling
imprisonment within the dreary walls of a Sanctuary, made yet more sad
by the unfortunate family which here takes refuge. Thou canst not help
them by thus sharing their sorrows, and it doth but make two other
souls unhappy." As I spoke these words the scene, drawn by my mind as
I paced back and forth across my room that happy night of the last ball
given by Edward at Windsor, when all my ambitions seemed about to be
realized, and yet when the first clouds were gathering, came again
clearly to my mind. I therefore waited, with the pain of expectation,
for Hazel to answer.

When, after a short silence, in which she seemed weighing her reasons
both pro and con granting my request, her answer came, and was partly
what I had hoped to hear, and wholly what I had expected.

"Yes, Walter, the promise that I made to thee that night, when we were
both so light of heart, and which now seemeth such a long time since, I
long to now fulfil. Yet," she continued, with a sigh, "my gratitude
for those which have ever been so kind to me doth whisper to my love
and it bids it wait, for but a little space, and show them some
sacrifice, to repay them for their kindness. Still do I promise thee,"
she continued quickly, as she saw my jaw drop in disappointment, "to
wait a short time only; and if, after the King's coronation, the
condition of the Queen's family changes not, then will I ask my dear
foster-mother for her consent to our union taking place at once."

"Wilt thou indeed?"

"Ay, indeed; though even this I fear to be selfish in me, and looketh
as though I cared not for the troubles of my friends, when I can be
happy whilst they suffer."

"Nay, not so," I replied, as some of the reasoning of Harleston came to
my mind. "Life is given but that it may be enjoyed. Some accomplish
this purpose in one way; some, another. Sorrow is sent but that it may
teach us how to enjoy happiness the better. We all must have our
sorrow. Some have more, and some less of this chastening agent's
presence. The reason for this I know not, unless it be that some of us
require a more severe training ere we are capable of following our
especial path in life, without straying off upon by-ways that nature
never intended we should tread. Some, I will admit, seem never to have
found their way. The con