more wretched than the
beggar whom a morsel of food will make contented."

"Resist this marriage, Lucy, for a time, that is all I ask," replied
her lover; "be firm, and, above all things, hope. You may ere long
understand the force and meaning of my words. At present you cannot, nor
is it in my power, with honor, to speak more plainly."

"My father," replied this high-minded and sensitive creature, "said some
time ago, 'Is not my daughter a woman of honor?' Yes, Charles, I must be
a woman of honor. But it is time you should go; only before you do, hear
me. Henceforth we have each of us one great mutual task imposed upon
us--a task the fulfilment of which is dictated alike by honor, virtue,
and religion."

"Alas, Lucy, what is that?"

"To forget each other. From the moment I become," she sobbed aloud--"you
know," she added, "what I would say, but what I cannot--from that moment
memory becomes a crime."

"But an involuntary crime, my ever dear Lucy. As for my part," he
replied, vehemently, and with something akin to distraction, "I feel
that is impossible, and that even were it possible, I would no more
attempt to banish your image from my heart than I would to deliberately
still its pulses. Never, never--such an attempt, such an act, if
successful, would be a murder of the affections. No. Lucy, whilst one
spark of mortal life is alive in my body, whilst memory can remember the
dreams of only the preceding moment, whilst a single faculty of heart or
intellect remains by which your image can be preserved, I shall cling to
that image as the shipwrecked sailor would to the plank that bears him
through the midnight storm--as a despairing soul would to the only good
act of a wicked life that he could plead for his salvation."

Whilst he spoke, Lucy kept her eyes fixed upon his noble features, now
wrought up into an earnest but melancholy animation, and when he had
concluded, she exclaimed, "And this is the man of whose love they would
deprive me, whose very acknowledgment of it comes upon my spirit like
an anthem of the heart; and I know not what I have done to be so tried;
yet, as it is the will of God, I receive it for the best. Dear Charles,
you must go; but you spoke of remonstrating with my father. Do not so;
an interview would only aggravate him. And as you admit that certain
documents are wanted to produce a change in his opinions, you may see
clearly that until you produce them an expostulation would be worse th