to combat the rough
associations of the camp, and the hardening duty of a soldier in
time of war.

It was, therefore, to her side that he came for that true happiness
that emanates from the better feelings of the heart; by her side
that he enjoyed the quiet but grand scenery of their native hills
and valleys, looking, as it were, through each other's eyes at every
beauty, either of thought or that lay tangible before them.

Though both Komel and Aphiz had been thrice happy in their constant
intercourse in the days of childhood, though those days, so well
remembered, had been to them like a pleasant morning filled with
song, or the gliding on of a summer stream, and were marked only by
truthfulness and peaceful content, still both realized as they now
entered upon a riper age of youth, that they were far happier than
ever before, that they loved each other better, and all things about
them. It is an error to suppose that childhood is the happiest
period of life, though philosophers tell us so, for a child's
pleasures are like early spring flowers--pretty, but pale, and
fleeting, and scentless. The rich and fragrant treasures of the
heart are not developed so early; they come with life's summer, and
thus it was with these Circassian youths.

Growing up daily and hourly together to that period when love holds
strongest sway over the heart, both felt how happily they could
kneel before Heaven and be pronounced one and inseparable; but Aphiz
was poor and had no home to offer a bride, besides which, the
character of the times was sufficient to prevent their more prudent
parents from yielding their consent to such an arrangement as their
immediate union, though they offered no opposition to their
intimacy.

Komel was of such a happy and cheerful disposition at heart that she
scattered pleasure always about her, but Aphiz's very love rendered
him thoughtful and perhaps at times a little melancholy; for he
feared that some future chance might in an unforeseen, way rob him
of her who was so ineffably dear to him. He did not exactly fear
that Komel's parents would sell her to go to Constantinople, though
they were now, since war and pestilence had swept away lands, home
and title, poor enough; and yet there was an undefined fear ever
acting in his heart as to her he loved. Sometimes when he realized
this most keenly, he could not help whispering his forebodings to
Komel herself.

"Nay, dear Aphiz," she would say to him, wi