and maiden looked mournfully into each other's eyes.
They had but stepped across the threshold of their homes, when lo! the
dark array of cares and sorrows that rose up to warn them back. The
varied narratives of the strangers had arranged themselves into a
parable; they seemed not merely instances of woful fate that had
befallen others, but shadowy omens of disappointed hope and unavailing
toil, domestic grief and estranged affection, that would cloud the
onward path of these poor fugitives. But after one instant's
hesitation, they opened their arms, and sealed their resolve with as
pure and fond an embrace as ever youthful love had hallowed.

"We will not go back," said they. "The world never can be dark to us,
for we will always love one another."

Then the Canterbury pilgrims went up the hill, while the poet chanted a
drear and desperate stanza of the Farewell to his Harp, fitting music
for that melancholy band. They sought a home where all former ties of
nature or society would be sundered, and all old distinctions levelled,
and a cold and passionless security be substituted for mortal hope and
fear, as in that other refuge of the world's weary outcasts, the grave.
The lovers drank at the Shaker spring, and then, with chastened hopes,
but more confiding affections, went on to mingle in an untried life.

THE DEVIL IN MANUSCRIPT

On a bitter evening of December, I arrived by mail in a large town,
which was then the residence of an intimate friend, one of those gifted
youths who cultivate poetry and the belles-lettres, and call themselves
students at law. My first business, after supper, was to visit him at
the office of his distinguished instructor. As I have said, it was a
bitter night, clear starlight, but cold as Nova Zembla,--the
shop-windows along the street being frosted, so as almost to hide the
lights, while the wheels of coaches thundered equally loud over frozen
earth and pavements of stone. There was no snow, either on the ground
or the roofs of the houses. The wind blew so violently, that I had but
to spread my cloak like a main-sail, and scud along the street at the
rate of ten knots, greatly envied by other navigators, who were beating
slowly up, with the gale right in their teeth. One of these I capsized,
but was gone on the wings of the wind before he could even vociferate
an oath.

After this picture of an inclement night, behold us seated by a great
blazing fire, which looked so comfortable