urned home, and, in fulfilment of Mildred's dying wish,
repaired without delay to the residence of his widow. Wilford had seen a
great deal of the world. He did not expect to find the bereaved one
inconsolable, but he was certainly staggered to behold her busy in
preparations for a second marriage. Indignant at what he conceived to be
an affront upon the memory of his friend, he argued and remonstrated
against her indecent haste, and besought her to postpone the unseemly
union. Roused by all he saw, the faithful friend spoke warmly on the
deceased's behalf, and painted in the strongest colours he could employ,
the enormity of her transgression. Now Margaret loved Michael as she had
never loved before. Slander could not open its lying lips to speak one
word against the esteem and gratitude she had ever entertained for Mildred
but esteem and gratitude--I appeal to the best, the most virtuous and
moral of my readers--cannot put out the fire that nature kindles in the
adoring heart of woman. Her error was not that she loved Michael more, but
that she had loved Mildred less. Ambition, if it usurp the rights of love,
must look for all the punishment that love inflicts. Sooner or later it
must come. "Who are you?" enquires the little god of the greater god,
ambition, "that you should march into my realms, and create rebellion
there? Wait but a little." Short was the interval between ambition's crime
and love's revenge with our poor Margaret. Wilford might never know how
cruelly his bitter words wrung her smitten soul. She did not answer him.
Paler she grew with every reproach--deeper was the self-conviction with
every angry syllable. She wept until he left her, and then she wrote to
Michael. As matters stood, and with their present understanding--he was
perhaps her best adviser. Wilford called to see her on the following
day--but Margaret's door was shut against him, and she beheld her
husband's friend no more.

And the blissful day came on--slowly, at last, to the happy lovers--for
happy they were in each other's sight, and in their passionate attachment.
And the blissful day arrived. Michael led her to the altar. A hundred
curious eyes looked on, admired, and praised, and envied. He might be
proud of his possession, were she unendowed with any thing but that
incomparable, unfading loveliness. And he, with his young and vigorous
form, was he not made for that rare plant to clasp and hang upon? "Heaven
bless them both!" So said