, fight like dogs and cats. I
beg your pardon, my Mary; but they do, though the words are ugly.'

'Ah! but if you had tried it as I've tried it, you would know better,
Eric.'

'I think I should, dear. But it's too late now. I must just go and see.
There's no other way left.'

The terrible cough came again. As soon as the fit was over, with a grand
despair in his heart, Robert went from behind the screen.

Ericson was on a couch. His head lay on Mary St. John's bosom. Neither
saw him.

'Perhaps,' said Ericson, panting with death, 'a kiss in heaven may be as
good as being married on earth, Mary.'

She saw Robert and did not answer. Then Eric saw him. He smiled; but
Mary grew very pale.

Robert came forward, stooped and kissed Ericson's forehead, kneeled and
kissed Mary's hand, rose and went out.

From that moment they were both dead to him. Dead, I say--not lost, not
estranged, but dead--that is, awful and holy. He wept for Eric. He did
not weep for Mary yet. But he found a time.

Ericson died two days after.

Here endeth Robert's youth.

CHAPTER XXV. IN MEMORIAM.

In memory of Eric Ericson, I add a chapter of sonnets gathered from his
papers, almost desiring that those only should read them who turn to
the book a second time. How his papers came into my possession, will be
explained afterwards.

Tumultuous rushing o'er the outstretched plains;
A wildered maze of comets and of suns;
The blood of changeless God that ever runs
With quick diastole up the immortal veins;
A phantom host that moves and works in chains;
A monstrous fiction which, collapsing, stuns
The mind to stupor and amaze at once;
A tragedy which that man best explains
Who rushes blindly on his wild career
With trampling hoofs and sound of mailed war,
Who will not nurse a life to win a tear,
But is extinguished like a falling star:--
Such will at times this life appear to me,
Until I learn to read more perfectly.

HOM. IL. v. 403.

If thou art tempted by a thought of ill,
Crave not too soon for victory, nor deem
Thou art a coward if thy safety seem
To spring too little from a righteous will:
For there is nightmare on thee, nor until
Thy soul hath caught the morning's early gleam
Seek thou to analyze the monstrous dream
By painful introversion; rather fill
Thine eye with forms thou knowest to be truth: