ame back to me.

"Ralph left me alone, and for a long hour I gave myself up to the
feelings which his simple offering had aroused. I had not thought there
could be so much of passion in my suffering now--the tears I shed burned
my cheek like flame; and, when the storm gust had spent its might, I
lay back on my couch, weak and faint.

"I was roused from those haunting memories by voices beneath my
window--it was _his_ voice; he was conversing with Ralph. I leaned
forward, and looked down upon them--then I realized how fearful was the
change which had passed over him. I had been dreaming of him, as he
appeared upon that blessed day, and the being I beheld beneath my
casement looked like the ghost of the happy-eyed boy of my vision.

"O, had he but confided in me--would he but have trusted me as his
sister--hush! am I not a wife? Whither have my mad thoughts led me! My
God, have mercy upon me, stay the terrible tempest which has desolated
my whole being, and now breathes its deadly simoon through the sepulchre
which was once a heart. I will neither write, nor think more--there must
be an end of this weakness--how unlike the fortitude I had promised
myself to acquire.

"Yet it seems strange that I have no right to indulge in these memories
of an era in my existence gone forever! How few and fleeting were those
moments of unshadowed sunlight; the brightest twin memories which my
soul can recall, were given to me under such different auspices. Of the
first sweet hour, I have just promised my soul never again to
think--upon the gloomy waters of my existence, no lilies are blossoming
now--the last withered flowers have been torn from their roots, and
swept idly down the current to perish, leaving only a faint perfume in
my heart, which is but an added pain.

"Now I know that its very bliss was a delusion of my fancy, like the
words, I believed to have heard, wrung from Harrington's breast during
that fearful tempest, when we stood upon the deck of the ill-fated
vessel, and death seemed so near us. Could I have died then, died with
his arms enfolding me, his manly heart against my own, the measure of
my existence had been complete--it began beneath the sunlight of his
smile, it would have ended with the last life-pulse within his noble
bosom.

"Now I will lay this book aside nor shall my hand again turn its pages,
until I have taught myself something of the quiet I have so long striven
to attain. If in the sight of Heaven