partment.

Her departure was not attended to by her companion, who for a time
continued his perusal of the book. No great while, however, elapsed,
when, rising also from his seat with a hasty exclamation of surprise, he
threw down the volume and followed her into the room where she sat
pensively meditating over thoughts and feelings as vague and inscrutable
to her mind, as they were clear and familiar to her heart. With a degree
of warm impetuosity, even exaggerated beyond his usual manner, which
bore at all times this characteristic, he approached her, and, seizing
her hand passionately in his, exclaimed hastily--

"Edith, my sweet Edith, how unhappy that book has made me!"

"How so, Ralph--why should it make you unhappy?"

"It has taught me much, Edith--very much, in the last half hour. It has
spoken of privation and disappointment as the true elements of life, and
has shown me so many pictures of society in such various situations, and
with so much that I feel assured must be correct, that I am unable to
resist its impressions. We have been happy--so happy, Edith, and for so
many years, that I can not bear to think that either of us should be
less so; and yet that volume has taught me, in the story of parallel
fortunes with ours, that it may be so. It has given me a long lesson in
the hollow economy of that world which men seek, and name society. It
has told me that we, or I, at least, may be made and kept miserable for
ever."

"How, Ralph, tell me, I pray you--how should that book have taught you
this strange notion? Why? What book is it? That stupid story!" was the
gasping exclamation of the astonished girl--astonished no less by the
impetuous manner than the strong language of the youth; and, with the
tenderest concern she laid her hand upon his arm, while her eyes, full
of the liveliest interest, yet moistened with a tearful apprehension,
were fixed earnestly upon his own.

"It is a stupid book, a very stupid book--a story of false sentiment,
and of mock and artificial feelings, of which I know, and care to know,
nothing. But it has told me so much that I feel is true, and that chimes
in with my own experience. It has told me much besides, that I am glad
to have been taught. Hear me then, dear Edith, and smile not carelessly
at my words, for I have now learned to tremble when I speak, in fear
lest I should offend you."

She would have spoken words of assurance--she would have taught him to
think better of