e test of his honesty will be the manner in
which he is acted upon by Charlotte's position as claimant of a great
fortune. Will he throw me overboard, I wonder? or will my dear one
believe me an adventurer and fortune-hunter? Ah, no, no, no; I do not
think in all the complications of life there could come about a state
of events which would cause my Charlotte to doubt me. There is no
clairvoyance so unerring as true love."

Mr. Hawkehurst had need of such philosophy as this to sustain him in
the present crisis of his life. He was blest with a pure delight which
excelled his wildest dreams of happiness; but he was not blest with any
sense of security as to the endurance of that exalted state of bliss.

Mr. Sheldon would learn Charlotte's position, would doubtless extort
from his brother the history of those researches in which Valentine had
been engaged; and then, what then? Alas! hereupon arose incalculable
dangers and perplexities.

Might not the stockbroker, as a man of the world, take a sordid view of
the whole transaction, and consider Valentine in the light of a
shameless adventurer, who had traded on his secret knowledge in the
hope of securing a rich wife? Might he not reveal all to Charlotte, and
attempt to place her lover before her in this most odious aspect? She
would not believe him base; her faith would be unshaken, her love
unchanged; but it was odious, it was horrible, to think that her ears
should be sullied, her tender heart fluttered, by the mere suggestion
of such baseness.

It was during the Christmas-morning sermon that Mr. Hawkehurst
permitted his mind to be disturbed by these reflections. He was sitting
next his betrothed, and had the pleasure of contemplating her fair
girlish face, with the rosy lips half parted in reverent attention as
she looked upward to her pastor. After church there was the walk home
to the Lawn: and during this rapturous promenade Valentine put away
from him all shadow of doubt and fear, in order to bask in the full
sunshine of his Charlotte's presence. Her pretty gloved hand rested
confidingly on his arm, and the supreme privilege of carrying a dainty
blue-silk umbrella and an ivory-bound church-service was awarded him.
With what pride he accepted the duty of convoying his promised wife
over the muddy crossings! Those brief journeys seemed to him in a
manner typical of their future lives. She was to travel dry-shod over
the miry ways of this world, supported by his str