early grave."

The tone of passionate enthusiasm which pervaded these words, uttered
as they were in a voice wherein pathos and melody were equally blended,
appeared to be almost too much for a creature whose sympathy in all
his moods and feelings was then so deep and congenial. She felt some
difficulty in repressing her tears, and said, in a voice which no effort
could keep firm.

"You ought not to indulge in those gloomy forebodings; you should
struggle against them, otherwise they will distress your mind, and
injure your health."

"Oh, you do not know," he proceeded, his eyes sparkling with that
light which is so often the beacon of death--"you do not know the
fatal fascination by which a mind, set to the sorrows of a melancholy
temperament, is charmed out of its strength. But no matter how dark may
be my dreams--there is one light for ever upon them--one image ever,
ever before me--one figure of grace and beauty--oh, how could I deny
myself the contemplation of a vision that pours into my soul a portion
of itself, and effaces: every other object but an entrancing sense of
its own presence. I cannot, I cannot--it bears me away into a happiness
that is full of sadness--where I indulge alone, without knowing why, in
my feast of tears'--happy! happy! so I think, and so I feel; yet why
is my heart sunk, and why are all my visions filled with death and the
grave?"

"Oh, do not talk so frequently of death," replied the beautiful girl,
"surely you need not fear it for a long while. This morbid tone of mind
will pass away when you grow into better health and strength."

"Is not this hour calm?" said he, flashing his dark eyes full upon her,
"see how beautiful the sun sinks in the west;--alas! so I should wish to
die--as calm, and the moral lustre of my life as radiant."

"And so you shall," said Jane, in a voice full of that delightful spirit
of consolation which, proceeding from such lips, breathes the most
affecting power of sympathy, "so you shall, but like him, not until
after the close of a long and well-spent life."

"That--that," said he, "was only a passing thought. Yes, the hour is
calm, but even in such stillness, do you not observe that the aspen
there to our left, this moment quivers to the breezes which we
cannot feel, and by which not a leaf of any other tree about us is
stirred--such I know myself to be, an aspen among men, stirred into
joy or sorrow, whilst the hearts of others are at rest. Oh, how