, for the
triumphant reason that it was liable to be misinterpreted.

In the mean time, it became necessary to report to Don Augustin,
the effects his arguments and prayers had produced on the heretical
disposition of the young soldier. No man is prone to confess his
weakness, at the very moment when circumstances demand the utmost
efforts of his strength. By a species of pious fraud, for which no doubt
the worthy priest found his absolution in the purity of his motives, he
declared that, while no positive change was actually wrought in the
mind of Middleton, there was every reason to hope the entering wedge of
argument had been driven to its head, and that in consequence an opening
was left, through which, it might rationally be hoped, the blessed seeds
of a religious fructification would find their way, especially if the
subject was left uninterruptedly to enjoy the advantage of catholic
communion.

Don Augustin himself was now seized with the desire of proselyting. Even
the soft and amiable Inez thought it would be a glorious consummation
of her wishes, to be a humble instrument of bringing her lover into
the bosom of the true church. The offers of Middleton were promptly
accepted, and, while the father looked forward impatiently to the day
assigned for the nuptials, as to the pledge of his own success, the
daughter thought of it with feelings in which the holy emotions of
her faith were blended with the softer sensations of her years and
situation.

The sun rose, the morning of her nuptials, on a day so bright and
cloudless, that Inez hailed it as a harbinger of future happiness.
Father Ignatius performed the offices of the church, in a little chapel
attached to the estate of Don Augustin; and long ere the sun had begun
to fall, Middleton pressed the blushing and timid young Creole to his
bosom, his acknowledged and unalienable wife. It had pleased the parties
to pass the day of the wedding in retirement, dedicating it solely
to the best and purest affections, aloof from the noisy and heartless
rejoicings of a compelled festivity.

Middleton was returning through the grounds of Don Augustin, from a
visit of duty to his encampment, at that hour in which the light of
the sun begins to melt into the shadows of evening, when a glimpse of
a robe, similar to that in which Inez had accompanied him to the altar,
caught his eye through the foliage of a retired arbour. He approached
the spot, with a delicacy that was rat