; "at night I see him. My soul is alone
with his; but--but,"--and she burst into an agony of tears--"the most
dreadful thought is this, I cannot master my dreams. And sometimes I
start and wake, and find that in sleep I have believed him guilty. Nay,
O God! that his lips have proclaimed the guilt! And shall any living
being--shall any but God, who reads not words but hearts, hear this
hideous falsehood--this ghastly mockery of the lying sleep? No, I must
be alone! The very stars should not hear what is forced from me in the
madness of my dreams."

But not in vain, or not excluded from her, was that elastic and
consoling spirit of which I have before spoken. As Aram recovered the
tenor of his self-possession, a more quiet and peaceful calm diffused
itself over the mind of Madeline. Her high and starry nature could
comprehend those sublime inspirations of comfort, which lift us from the
lowest abyss of this world to the contemplation of all that the yearning
visions of mankind have painted in another. She would sit, rapt and
absorbed for hours together, till these contemplations assumed the
colour of a gentle and soft insanity. "Come, dearest Madeline," Ellinor
would say,--"Come, you have thought enough; my poor father asks to see
you."

"Hush!" Madeline answered. "Hush, I have been walking with Eugene in
heaven; and oh! there are green woods, and lulling waters above, as
there are on earth, and we see the stars quite near, and I cannot tell
you how happy their smile makes those who look upon them. And Eugene
never starts there, nor frowns, nor walks aside, nor looks on me with an
estranged and chilling look; but his face is as calm and bright as the
face of an angel;--and his voice!--it thrills amidst all the music which
plays there night and day--softer than their softest note. And we are
married, Ellinor, at last. We were married in heaven, and all the angels
came to the marriage! I am now so happy that we were not wed before!
What! are you weeping, Ellinor? Ah, we never weep in heaven! but we will
all go there again--all of us, hand in hand!"

These affecting hallucinations terrified them, lest they should settle
into a confirmed loss of reason; but perhaps without cause. They never
lasted long, and never occurred but after moods of abstraction of
unusual duration. To her they probably supplied what sleep does to
others--a relaxation and refreshment--an escape from the consciousness
of life. And indeed it might alw