p your
toilet, as you have helped mine, and to go with you to church, though
not, alas! as your bridesmaid. Ah! whom shall we have for that duty?"

"Pshaw!" said Ellinor, smiling through her tears.

While the sisters were thus engaged, and Madeline was trying, with her
innocent kindness of heart, to exhilarate the spirits, so naturally
depressed, of her doting sister, the sound of carriage-wheels was heard
in the distance,--nearer, nearer; now the sound stopped, as at the gate;
now fast, faster,--fast as the postilions could ply whip and the horses
tear along. While the groups in the church-yard ran forth to gaze, and
the bells rang merrily all the while, two chaises whirled by Madeline's
window and stopped at the porch of the house. The sisters had flown in
surprise to the casement.

"It is, it is--good God! it is Walter," cried Ellinor; "but how pale he
looks!"

"And who are those strange men with him?" faltered Madeline, alarmed,
though she knew not why.

CHAPTER II.

THE STUDENT ALONE IN HIS CHAMBER.--THE INTERRUPTION.--FAITHFUL LOVE.

NEQUICQUAM thalamo graves
Hastas....
Vitabis strepitumque et celerem sequi
Ajacem.
--HORACE: Od. xv. lib. 1.

["In vain within your nuptial chamber will you
shun the deadly spears,... the hostile shout,
and Ajax eager in pursuit."]

Alone in his favorite chamber, the instruments of science around him,
and books, some of astronomical research, some of less lofty but yet
abstruser lore, scattered on the tables, Eugene Aram indulged the last
meditation he believed likely to absorb his thoughts before that great
change of life which was to bless solitude with a companion.

"Yes," said he, pacing the apartment with folded arms, "yes, all is
safe! He will not again return; the dead sleeps now without a witness.
I may lay this working brain upon the bosom that loves me, and not start
at night and think that the soft hand around my neck is the hangman's
gripe. Back to thyself, henceforth and forever, my busy heart! Let
not thy secret stir from its gloomy depth! The seal is on the tomb;
henceforth be the spectre laid. Yes, I must smooth my brow, and teach
my lip restraint, and smile and talk like other men. I have taken to my
hearth a watch, tender, faithful, anxious,--but a watch. Farewell the
unguarded hour! The soul's relief in speech, the dark and broken, yet
how grateful, confidence with self, farewe