e interrogative, and asked me if I thought Margaret would ever marry,
to which I answered: "I hope so, but she shall not with my consent."

"I was married when I was Margaret's age," added my wife. (What woman is
there who does not love to say the same?) "Margaret will soon be
twenty."

"Yes, my dear, but few women have the chance that came to you and no man
ever had provocation like to mine." This was followed by a passage at
arms, during which, of course, the fair debater's lips were sealed.

By degrees my wife's attack upon the subject grew bolder and more
frontal.

"Do you think Margaret cares anything for Angus?" she asked, the hour
being that post-retiring one sacred in every age to conjugal conference.

"I don't think so--certainly not; why should she? We have a triangular
family altogether--two to each of us, and why should she want any more?
She has you and me, just as I have you and her, and you have her and
me."

"But that is foolish; you don't understand."

"I don't want to understand," I answered drowsily. "Margaret's only a
child--and I want to go to sleep; if I don't sleep over my sermon
to-night, the people will to-morrow." For it was Saturday night.

But "the child" was not asleep. The love affairs of other hearts are by
others easily borne, even though those others be the next nearest and
dearest of all. But how different with the maiden's heart that loves,
and tremblingly hopes that it loves not in vain! Then doth the pillow
burn with holy passion, and considerate sleep, like an indulgent nurse,
turns her steps aside, fearing to break in upon the soul's solemn
revelry. Even when she ventures nigh, gently withdrawing the still
unwearied heart from its virgin joy, do the half open lips still sip
from the new found cisterns of sweet and tender bliss.

O holy love! Who shall separate the joy thou bringest from the heart
that opens wide to welcome it, even as the flower bares its bosom to the
sun?

Darkness and tears and sorrow may follow fast; fears and misgivings and
dread discoveries may come close upon thy train; broken-heartedness and
bleak perpetual maidenhood may be thine only relics; or, flowering with
the years, the thorns of grief and poverty and widowhood may grow where
youthful fancy looked for radiant flowers; the heart which echoed with
thy bridal song may yet peal forth the Rachel cry--but thou belongest
to the heart forever, and none of these can dispossess the soul of its
unfor