ough the strong tremor which had thrilled through the frame of
Claire had subsided. He was still bowed forward, with his face hid
on her bosom, while her arm was drawn lovingly around him. So they
remained for a time longer. At length, the young man lifted himself
up, and fixed his eyes upon her. His countenance was pale and sad, and
bore traces of intense suffering.

"My husband! my dear husband!" murmured Edith.

"My wife! my good angel!" was the low, thrilling response; and Claire
pressed his lips almost reverently upon the brow of his wife.

"I have had a fearful dream, Edith!" said he; "a very fearful dream.
Thank God, I am awake now."

"A dream, Edward?" returned his wife, not fully comprehending him.

"Yes, love, a dream; yet far too real. Surely, I dreamed, or was
under some dire enchantment. But the spell is gone--gone, I trust, for
ever."

"What spell, love? Oh, speak to me a plainer language!"

"I think, Edith," said the young man, after remaining thoughtfully
silent for some time, "that I will try and get another place. I don't
believe it is good for me to live with Leonard Jasper. Gold is the god
he worships; and I find myself daily tempted to bend my knee in the
same idolatry."

"Edward!" A shadow had fallen on the face of Edith.

"You look troubled at my words, Edith," resumed the young man; "yet
what I say is true, too true. I wish it were not so. Ah! this
passage through the world, hard and toilsome as it is, has many, many
dangers."

"If we put our trust in God, we need have no fear," said Edith, in a
gentle yet earnest and penetrating voice, laying her hand lovingly on
the hot forehead of her husband, and gazing into his eyes.

"Nothing without can harm us. Our worst enemies are within."

"Within?"

"Yes, love; within our bosoms. Into our distrusts and unsatisfied
desires they enter, and tempt us to evil."

"True, true," said Claire, in an abstracted manner, and as if speaking
to himself.

"What more do we want to make us happy?" asked Edith, comprehending
still more clearly her husband's state of mind.

Claire sighed deeply, but made no answer.

"More money could not do it," she added.

"Money would procure us many comforts that we do not now possess,"
said the young man.

"I doubt this, Edward. It might give more of the elegancies of life;
but, as I have often said, these do not always produce corresponding
pleasure. If they come, without too ardent seeking, in the good
ple