erto no presence had restrained her in its expression--not even
that, to lovers of less pure design, awe-inspiring above all others--the
presence of the parents. Alone or in their company, there was no
difference in her conduct. She knew not the hypocrisies of artificial
natures; the restraints, the intrigues, the agonies of atoms that act.

She knew not the terror of guilty minds. She obeyed only the impulse
her Creator had kindled within her.

With me it was otherwise. I had shouldered society; though not much
then, enough to make me less proud of love's purity--enough to render me
slightly sceptical of its sincerity. But through her I had now escaped
from that scepticism. I had become a faithful believer in the nobility
of the passion.

Our love was sanctioned by those who alone possessed the right to
sanction it. It was sanctified by its own purity.

We are gazing upon a fair scene: fairer now, at the sunset hour. The
sun is no longer upon the stream, but his rays slant through the foliage
of the cotton-wood trees that fringe it, and here and there a yellow
beam is flung transversely on the water. The forest is dappled by the
high tints of autumn. There are green leaves and red ones; some of a
golden colour and others of dark maroon. Under this bright mosaic the
river winds away like a giant serpent, hiding its head in the darker
woods around El Paso.

We command a view of all this, for we are above the landscape. We see
the brown houses of the village, with the shining vane of its church.
Our eyes have often rested upon that vane in happy hours, but none
happier than now, for our hearts are full of happiness.

We talk of the past as well as the present; for Zoe has now seen
something of life, its darker pictures it is true; but these are often
the most pleasant to be remembered; and her desert experience has
furnished her with many a new thought--the cue to many an inquiry.

The future becomes the subject of our converse. It is all bright,
though a long and even perilous journey is before us. We think not of
that. We look beyond it to that promised hour when I am to teach, and
she is to learn, what is "to marry."

Someone is touching the strings of a bandolin. We look around. Madame
Seguin is seated upon a bench, holding the instrument in her hands. She
is tuning it. As yet she has not played. There has been no music since
our return.

It is by Seguin's request that the instrument has