m of a joyous welcome. Alice remembered the thousand acts of kindness
by which he had endeared to her the very helplessness which had called
them forth. His was the hand every ready to guide her, the arm offered
for her support. His were the cheering accents most welcome to her ears,
and his steps had a music which belonged to no steps but his. His image,
reflected on the retina of the soul, was beautiful as the dream of
imagination, an image on which time could cast no shadow, being without
variableness or change.

"Thank God," again repeated Louis to himself, "that she cannot see. I
can read no reproach in those blue and silent orbs. I can drink in her
pure and holy loveliness, till my spirit grows purer and holier as I
gaze. Blessings on thee for coming, sweet and gentle Alice. As David
charmed the evil spirit in the haunted breast of Saul, so shall thy
divine strains lull to rest the fiends of remorse that are wrestling and
gnawing in my bosom. The time has been when I dreamed of being thy guide
through life, a lamp to thy blindness, and a stay and support to thy
helpless innocence. The dream is past--I wake to the dread reality of my
own utter unworthiness."

These thoughts rose tumultuously in the breast of the young man, in the
moment of greeting, while the soft hand of the blind girl lingered
tremblingly in his. Without thinking of the influence it might have on
her feelings, he sought her presence as a balm to his chafed and
tortured heart, as a repose to his worn and weary spirit, as an anodyne
to the agonies of remorse. The grave, sad glance of his father; the
serious, yet tender and pitying look of his step-mother; and the
pensive, melting, sympathizing eye of Helen, were all daggers to his
conscience. But Alice could not see. No daggers of reproach were
sheathed in those reposing eyes. Oh! how remorse and shame shrink from
being arraigned before that throne of light where the immortal spirit
sits enthroned--the human eye! If thus conscious guilt recoils from the
gaze of man, weak, fallible, erring man, how can it stand the consuming
fire of that Eternal Eye, in whose sight the heavens are not clean, and
before which archangels bend, veiling their brows with their refulgent
wings!

It was about a week after the arrival of Louis and the coming of Alice,
that, as the family were assembled round the evening fireside, a note
was brought to Louis.

"Clinton is come," cried he, in an agitated voice, "he waits