e hopes which, age after age, have consoled the
sufferer and inspired the martyr. The soul knelt to the idea, if the
knee bowed not to the image, embracing the tender grandeur of the
sacrifice and the vast inheritance opened to faith in the redemption.

The young man held his breath while he gazed. He was moved, and he was
awed. Slowly Helen turned towards him, and, smiling sweetly, held out
to him her hand. They seated themselves in silence in the depth of the
overhanging casement; and the mournful character of the scene without,
where dimly, through the misty rains, gloomed the dark foliage of the
cedars, made them insensibly draw closer to each other in the instinct
of love when the world frowns around it. Percival wanted the courage to
say that he had come to take farewell, though but for a day, and Helen
spoke first.

"I cannot guess why it is, Percival, but I am startled at the change I
feel in myself--no, not in health, dear Percival; I mean in mind--during
the last few months,--since, indeed, we have known each other. I
remember so well the morning in which my aunt's letter arrived at the
dear vicarage. We were returning from the village fair, and my good
guardian was smiling at my notions of the world. I was then so giddy
and light and thoughtless, everything presented itself to me in such
gay colours, I scarcely believed in sorrow. And now I feel as if I were
awakened to a truer sense of nature,--of the ends of our being here; I
seem to know that life is a grave and solemn thing. Yet I am not less
happy, Percival. No, I think rather that I knew not true happiness till
I knew you. I have read somewhere that the slave is gay in his holiday
from toil; if you free him, if you educate him, the gayety vanishes,
and he cares no more for the dance under the palm-tree. But is he less
happy? So it is with me!"

"My sweet Helen, I would rather have one gay smile of old, the arch,
careless laugh which came so naturally from those rosy lips, than hear
you talk of happiness with that quiver in your voice,--those tears in
your eyes."

"Yet gayety," said Helen, thoughtfully, and in the strain of her pure,
truthful poetry of soul, "is only the light impression of the present
moment,--the play of the mere spirits; and happiness seems a forethought
of the future, spreading on, far and broad, over all time and space."

"And you live, then, in the future at last; you have no misgivings now,
my Helen? Well, that comforts me. S