ought, may be-to ask a greater affection.

That is why it seems so

we

will go

strange to me that my little deserts should have gained it—a proper commonplace to end my sermon!" he said " in now, or my own mother will wonder what incantation we are throwing round the house; this is our third circuit."

As I remarked before, I felt a traitor to Robert as he spoke, and reluctantly followed him into Fountainhall. The houses immediately interested in an engagement are generally animated with a great liveliness and decided couleur de rose in the sky; but they are not precisely "Palaces of Truth." On the contrary, engagements are flourishing epochs of a certain not ungracious or unnecessary insincerity. What charming qualities are then discovered among the in laws on both sides, which never will exist,-and never did exist! There had been something of this in one of my compliments to Robert. And it did seem strange to me, almost incredible, that Cecilia should be willing to exchange that house for Ardeley.

CHAPTER VIII.

If, however, I did not at this time judge Mrs. Therfield fairly, there was some reason besides the folly and the haste of youth for error. I did not then know how true and loving a wife she had always proved herself; how tender a mother to the maiden I was afterwards to receive from her hands, and moulded by her care to the same pattern of excellence. She wanted, and it now struck me most, that buoyancy and health of mind, that firm and easy spirit which so marked my own mother; in one word that explains all, I knew she was capable of a "scene." This difference, defect perhaps, showed itself, of course, conspicuously in her manner, often in her first address, and most especially when from any cause excited or shaken from her propriety. I have known since how few women, comparatively at least, unite frank and happy courage (a wisdom in itself) to judgment and power of thought in that degree with which I was at home familiar, and can never hope to see again. But without these rarer qualities (and “all tenderness such as women like her only have, was in my mother combined with them), a truly feminine and estimable character may

exist. "I am very happy, dear Edmund, when I think of the mother you will have," my own said during one of the days when happiness seemed to me a thing beyond any future possibility-"I daresay, judging by myself and my own frequent idle fancies, you have imagined Mrs. Therfield a little wanting in strength of mind: but you may trust me no one could have reared such a daughter who had not such a truly sweet and holy disposition. You will be very kind to dear Eleanor, will you not? I am sure from her cradle she has never heard from her own mother one syllable that was not tender and loving."-We often hear it said that insight into futurity has been mercifully kept back from man ; yet if on the day of that visit these words had been conveyed to me by prophecy, how many foolish and fretful thoughts would they not have charmed away!

Mrs. Therfield received us, we met her in the hall, with all manner of affectionate incoherences-she begged us to excuse her—was really ashamed to run away-how happy dear Robert looks, does he not?-had some important commission to give her daughter-should be back in a moment, it was a trifle, only a trifle.

"Never mind us, dear Mother," cried Robert.

"And how have you left dearest Cecilia, as pretty and gay as usual, no, much more so, no doubt ? Come into the drawing room for a moment Robert, and Mr. Marlowe; there are some old friends here to congratulate you," and she led us to the door.

"Will you send us Eleanor, when you have done."

"What about Eleanor, dear Robert? I daresay she is upstairs. I think you know them, Mr. Marlowe, Edmund may I call you now? Lady F, an excellent friend of your parents."-The prospect was not cheering when I had walked to Fountainhall in hopes of learning more from Robert of his hopes, and success, and intentions than time had yet allowed him to tell me; but I could not help smiling at his mother's eagerness. While she spoke she turned the door handle several times, and must still find time to take her son's hands and give him a hearty kiss, and then wipe her own eyes before leading us in to the visiters.

There was something of a sarcastic smile on the Lady's face and her two eldest daughters' as we entered. Their congratulations in due form

may, of course, be omitted, as I suppose they were scarcely heard; but there was one remark which, as I had anticipated, I was not to escape.

"So delightfully rapid too, Mr. Marlowe; I had always held your sister up to my daughters as a model of prudence, and I am sure she has acted prudently now, most prudently in every respect; but I must give Mr. Robert Therfield also joy on his powers of conquest. My husband said it was quite like Augustus Caesar-he came, and saw, and was overcome."

I do not suppose that Mrs. Therfield observed the silence with which Robert and I received these remarks; but she kindly endeavoured to give the conversation another turn by speaking of the marriage day, which she appeared to have fixed already. This brought on from Lady F—, a repetition of the same compliments, in hope that her satire would not go quite unrewarded,—but I was replying now to the thousand enquiries of the young ladies, and heard only Mrs. Therfield's observation "Yes, poor thing, I am afraid she will feel the separation terribly, she is quite sad with the thought of it now, Mr. Therfield was just telling me."

"If any one is in fault for precipitation, it is I," Robert said, when the visiters had left the house and his mother the room to summon Eleanor, "I wish people would not make such remarks."

"A useless wish: and besides I am certain you do not quite wish it. At least I am sure such a triumph would not be so decided an annoyance to me; although now perhaps

"Perhaps you were surprised too? I had best tell you all; you are her brother." He lowered his voice. "Dear Cecilia, my dear Cecilia, said a strange thing after-when all was arranged-that she had before seen in a dream what had happened or heard it told her, I could not understand which, in some mysterious manner. You are not vexed with me, dear Edmund, for speaking to you of this?

I reassured him with an indefinite feeling of awe as he continued, that Cecilia had mentioned this that morning with many tears, but saying it was right he should know all. She remembered nothing similar in her life, except perhaps when she was a child and under the influence of babyish fancies, "not much wiser than my doll." Yet she could not doubt that this was something real, something inexplicable,almost, awful. "Did he think her not too foolish? Did he forgive her?"

She had dried her first tears, Robert said, when she spoke thus, and looked so sad, so earnest and resigned that he could not express the force of his admiration for a mind so unusually constituted. It was one of those conjunctures that most raise Love, when the Beloved displays a character more gifted than ours, at the moment she appeals to our protection. "There was more too; she would tell him afterwards; it did not immediately touch him; when you have a right to ask, dear Robert-but prayed it might not be true; that it might be a mere fancy-a girlish weakness and delusion. She did not know she was subject to such imaginations; she was ashamed when she thought of this, and of the promise she had so lately made him; but it was best that he should at once hear the whole truth-" before it was too late too," he said she added: as if Cecilia were not indefinitely more endeared to him by the confession, or the confession itself not a sign of love, the most precious and touchingly convincing.

I thanked Robert heartily for his confidence, and said that my long knowledge of Cecilia could not assist me to explain the mystery. I remembered strange fancies that had fallen on her when a child, some already noticed here; but all connected with her mother, who seemed without share in this. Nor although in her rare depth of feeling Cecilia resembled her father, could his character then afford me any light. Probably it was the excitement of the moment; at least a matter we had best speak of no more. Her "hereafter would be the most convincing of proofs."

My suggestion was so thoroughly followed that for many months, I believe, neither thought of the matter again. I think we acted wisely. If the secrets of all hearts were laid bare, few perhaps would deny that there have been times when, however sane in general tenour of mind, they had been taken in some measure out of themselves, to pass a period,― who should measure how long?-in a new region, which they could think of afterwards only as of a dream when one awaketh. Every one, like Socrates, has, if not his Daemon, yet his daemonic moments. Those are unhappy who have no friend near enough for one confession of such a state-for one reassurance that others have experienced what alarms us so by appearing to prove that we are exceptional;-those not less pitiable, who dwell too often on the wonders within them, and, with an immoderate and too curious interest, retraverse the Soul's spectral

desert, or explore the secret terrors of our spiritual anatomy. Much passes there, that the wisest could not solve, or the bravest witness unterrified. There is another self in self, which, like the skull behind the child's fair features, is providentially placed so near us that we are saved the terror of looking on what we could perhaps not behold, and live.

A portion of these thoughts (for part is probably due to my own later experience) was in my mind then, when Eleanor joined us with Mrs. Therfield's message, that she desired a few minutes' conversation with her son. "You will have much to talk over with this child," Robert said as he went out.-But Eleanor was a child to me no longer, in the secret places of the heart, when I left Fountainhall.

CHAPTER IX.

"You say

My dear mother's womanly tact felt the change at once. Eleanor much oftener than you used, Edmund," she observed with a smile that evening as I described the visit. And as I was silent she came up without another word, kissed me, and went upstairs; and presently, from Cecilia's room I heard eager voices, and gentle laughter, and quiet pauses, perhaps for sighs-" as when snow," to borrow Dante's phrase, "falls mingled with soft rain." It was true that perhaps their feeling for me outran, at the moment, mine that caused it. But the reader has seen already that there is no romance about me; a commonplace person in a house full of unusual characters. him is to remark, at the same time, that I am not the hero of my story.

that I am All I ask

As azure seas deepen azure skies by reflection, so love acts on love. In the half-hour of that evening which remained, before my father, having concluded for the night his study of some great human thinker, came ordinarily for a few minutes' talk with me; interposing this break between Plato or Homer and the chapter from Prophet or Evangelist, which formed his last study, I thought over the morning's interview with Eleanor. Those who love, as I might say, by pure instinct,--love, as they say, at once and for ever, have no room for such conscious retrospection. Memory with such is, I suppose, only a passage from