being down, I saw my happy friend fondly encircle his companion's waist
with his arm, while she rested her glowing cheek on his shoulder, looking
the very impersonation of loving, trusting bliss. In the interval
between the footman's closing the door and taking his place behind she
raised her smiling brown eyes to his face, observing, playfully,--'I fear
you must think me very insensible, Frederick: I know it is the custom for
ladies to cry on these occasions, but I couldn't squeeze a tear for my
life.'

He only answered with a kiss, and pressed her still closer to his bosom.

'But what is this?' he murmured. 'Why, Esther, you're crying now!'

'Oh, it's nothing--it's only too much happiness--and the wish,' sobbed
she, 'that our dear Helen were as happy as ourselves.'

'Bless you for that wish!' I inwardly responded, as the carriage rolled
away--'and heaven grant it be not wholly vain!'

I thought a cloud had suddenly darkened her husband's face as she spoke.
What did he think? Could he grudge such happiness to his dear sister and
his friend as he now felt himself? At such a moment it was impossible.
The contrast between her fate and his must darken his bliss for a time.
Perhaps, too, he thought of me: perhaps he regretted the part he had had
in preventing our union, by omitting to help us, if not by actually
plotting against us. I exonerated him from that charge now, and deeply
lamented my former ungenerous suspicions; but he had wronged us, still--I
hoped, I trusted that he had. He had not attempted to cheek the course
of our love by actually damming up the streams in their passage, but he
had passively watched the two currents wandering through life's arid
wilderness, declining to clear away the obstructions that divided them,
and secretly hoping that both would lose themselves in the sand before
they could be joined in one. And meantime he had been quietly proceeding
with his own affairs; perhaps, his heart and head had been so full of his
fair lady that he had had but little thought to spare for others.
Doubtless he had made his first acquaintance with her--his first intimate
acquaintance at least--during his three months' sojourn at F--, for I now
recollected that he had once casually let fall an intimation that his
aunt and sister had a young friend staying with them at the time, and
this accounted for at least one-half his silence about all transactions
there. Now, too, I saw a reason for many little