im a graceful excuse for turning the conversation away
form any topics that did not relate to Madeline, or to that event.

It was the eve before their marriage; Aram and Madeline were walking
along the valley that led to the house of the former.

"How fortunate it is!" said Madeline, "that our future residence will
be so near my father's. I cannot tell you with what delight he looks
forward to the pleasant circle we shall make. Indeed, I think he would
scarce have consented to our wedding, if it had separated us from him."

Aram stopped, and plucked a flower.

"Ah! indeed, indeed, Madeline! Yet in the course of the various changes
of life, how more than probable it is that we shall be divided from
him--that we shall leave this spot."

"It is possible, certainly; but not probable, is it, Eugene?"

"Would it grieve thee irremediably, dearest, were it so?" rejoined Aram,
evasively.

"Irremediably! What could grieve me irremediably, that did not happen to
you?"

"Should, then, circumstances occur to induce us to leave this part of
the country, for one yet more remote, you could submit cheerfully to the
change?"

"I should weep for my father--I should weep for Ellinor; but--"

"But what?"

"I should comfort myself in thinking that you would then be yet more to
me than ever!"

"Dearest!"

"But why do you speak thus; only to try me? Ah! that is needless."

"No, my Madeline; I have no doubt of your affection. When you loved such
as me, I knew at once how blind, how devoted must be that love. You were
not won through the usual avenues to a woman's heart; neither wit nor
gaiety, nor youth nor beauty, did you behold in me. Whatever attracted
you towards me, that which must have been sufficiently powerful to
make you overlook these ordinary allurements, will be also sufficiently
enduring to resist all ordinary changes. But listen, Madeline. Do not
yet ask me wherefore; but I fear, that a certain fatality will constrain
us to leave this spot, very shortly after our wedding."

"How disappointed my poor father will be!" said Madeline, sighing.

"Do not, on any account, mention this conversation to him, or to
Ellinor; 'sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.'"

Madeline wondered, but said no more. There was a pause for some minutes.

"Do you remember," observed Madeline, "that it was about here we met
that strange man whom you had formerly known?"

"Ha! was it?--Here, was it?"

"What has become of him?"