loins with
sackcloth, and did resolve as beggars to undergo the gibes and the
kicks wherewith brutal insolence and swilling voluptuousness drive the
needy from their doors, that by so doing you might thoroughly purge
yourselves from the foul sin of wealth."

The world with all its inhabitants floated in a mist before his eyes:
he resolved to look upon the destitute as his brethren, and to depart
from the communion of the happy.

They had been waiting a long time for him in the hall, that the
ceremony might be performed; the bride had grown uneasy; her parents
had gone in search of him through the garden and park: at length he
returned, lighter for having wept away his agitation; and the solemn
knot was tied.

The company then walkt from the hall on the ground floor to the open
gallery, to sit down to dinner. The bride and bridegroom led the way,
and the rest followed in their train. Roderick offered his arm to a
young girl who was lively and talkative.

"Why does a bride always cry, and look so serious and sad during the
ceremony?" said she, as they mounted the stairs.

"Because it is the first time that she ever thoroughly feels what a
momentous and mysterious thing life is:" answered Roderick.

"But our bride," continued the girl, "in her gravity goes far beyond
all I have ever yet seen. Indeed there is always something melancholy
about her, and one can never catch her in a downright merry laugh."

"This does the more honour to her heart," replied Roderick, himself
more serious than usual. "You don't know perhaps that the bride a few
years ago took a lovely little orphan girl into her house, to educate
her. All her time was devoted to this child, and the gentle creature's
love was her sweetest reward. When the girl was seven years old, she
was lost on a walk about the town; and in spite of all the pains that
have been used, nobody has ever found out what became of her. Our
noble-minded hostess has taken this misfortune so much to heart, that
she has been a prey ever since to silent grief, and nothing can win
her mind away from longing after her little playfellow."

"A most interesting adventure indeed!" said the young lady. "One might
see a whole romance in three volumes growing out of this seed. It will
be a strange sight, and it will not be for nothing, when this lost
star reappears. What a pretty poem it would make! Don't you think so,
sir?"

The party took their seats: the bride and bridegroom were in t