you will rest but ill on my hard couch."

"My slumbers will be sweet as though I reposed on eider down," returned
he, "if you will but assure me that my coming or words have not marred
your quiet and composure."

"My boy," said the hermit, gazing on him anxiously, "what do you mean?
How should the arrival of one I have so longed to behold give aught but
joy to my lonely soul?"

"I may have spoken words that grieved you," said the young man,
sorrowfully; "but I could not bear to conceal the truth from you, dear
uncle;" and his voice trembled as he spoke.

"Edgar," returned the hermit, with emotion, "I am grateful for your
confidence, and though I could have wished your heart's affections
bestowed on some other woman, I will no longer oppose your inclinations.
Marry Florence Howard if you choose."

"Marry her!" exclaimed Edgar, suddenly breaking in upon his uncle's
discourse. "She is engaged to another."

"What is his name?" asked the hermit.

"Rufus Malcome," returned the young man.

"What! a brother to the girl I saw with you on the river bank?" inquired
the recluse, with a sudden excitement of manner.

"Yes," said Edgar; "the brother of Edith Malcome."

"O, the mysterious workings of fate!" exclaimed the hermit, falling
again into a ruminating silence, which Edgar did not deem it wise to
disturb.

So they laid down on the lowly couch, and the young man, fatigued with
his journeyings, drew the coverings over his head to exclude the shrill
shriekings of the sweeping blasts, and soon rested quietly in the sweet
forgetfulness of sleep.

Sleep! angel ministrant to the grief-stricken soul. How many that walk
this verdant earth would fain lie locked in her slumberous arms forever!

CHAPTER XL.

"No voice hath breathed upon mine ear
Thy name since last we met;
No sound disturbed the silence drear,
Where sleep entombed from year to year,
Thy memory, my regret."

In her own elegantly appointed apartment sat Florence Howard, with her
journal open upon the table.

"Beneath the old roof-tree of home once more," she wrote, "to find my
mother's pale face yet paler than when I left her, and a sudden tremor
and nervousness betrayed on the slightest unusual sound, which is
exceeding painful to witness.

"Hannah's penchant for me seems to have decreased somewhat, since father
waited o