hing of the
senses! You have earned the right to laugh."

These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed
her eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged
for that purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she
recognized how barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which
had once blazed forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare
away all their happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face
with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for.

"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she.

"Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "My
peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!"

"My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness,
"you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that,
with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the
earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!"

Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery
of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself
in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the
birthmark--that sole token of human imperfection--faded from her
cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into
the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband,
took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was
heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in
its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim
sphere of half development, demands the completeness of a higher
state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus
have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal
life of the self-same texture with the celestial. The momentary
circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the
shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to
find the perfect future in the present.

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE CLASSICS, VOLUME 8 (OF 18)***

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