t,
that winning kindness, that had first softened her heart towards
Paul, and her lips trembled as she pressed the insensible glass
against them.

"She must have been very handsome, Eve, and there is a look of
melancholy tenderness in the face, that would seem almost to predict
an unhappy blighting of the affections."

"And yet this young, ingenuous, faithful woman entered on the solemn
engagement we have just made, Paul, with as many reasonable hopes of
a bright future as we ourselves!"

"Not so, Eve--confidence and holy truth were wanting at the nuptials
of my parents. When there is deception at the commencement of such a
contract, it is not difficult to predict the end."

"I do not think, Paul, you ever deceived; that noble heart of yours
is too generous!"

"If any thing can make a man worthy of such a love, dearest, it is
the perfect and absorbing confidence with which your sex throw
themselves on the justice and faith of ours. Did that spotless heart
ever entertain a doubt of the worth of any living being on which It
had set its affections?"

"Of itself, often, and they say self-love lies at the bottom of all
our actions."

"You are the last person to hold this doctrine, beloved, for those
who live most in your confidence declare that all traces of self are
lost in your very nature."

"Most in my confidence! My father--- my dear, kind father, has then
been betraying his besetting weakness, by extolling the gift he has
made."

"Your kind, excellent father, knows too well the total want of
necessity for any such thing. If the truth must be confessed, I have
been passing a quarter of an hour with worthy Ann Sidley."

"Nanny--dear old Nanny!--and you have been weak enough, traitor, to
listen to the eulogiums of a nurse on her child!"

"All praise of thee, my blessed Eve, is grateful to my ears, and who
can speak more understandingly of those domestic qualities which lie
at the root of domestic bliss, than those who have seen you in your
most intimate life, from childhood down to the moment when you have
assumed the duties of a wife?"

"Paul, Paul, thou art beside thyself; too much learning hath made
thee mad!"

"I am not mad, most beloved and beautiful Eve, but blessed to a
degree that might indeed upset a stronger reason."

"We will now talk of other things," said Eve, raising his hand to her
lips in respectful affection, and looking gratefully up into his fond
and eloquent eyes; "I hope the feeli