med dull without her; and he found himself thinking of her,
and then writing to her, and then going to see her,--till, to his
astonishment, he found himself a lover and a husband. His professorship,
too, happened to come at the exact moment, for it emboldened him with
hopes of success he could not have cherished as a village teacher.

"How the wild creature happened to love me, a grave, ungainly pedagogue,
I cannot divine," he added; "but if gratitude, tenderness, and the most
implicit confidence in her truth and affection can make her happy, she
shall never regret her heart's choice."

_Confidence_ did he say? Happy, thrice happy Margaret!

CHAPTER XLVIII.

It was an evening of excitement. Edith sang, and Margaret played some of
her elfin strains, and Mr. Regulus made music leap joyously from the
sounding violin. There was one in the lonely library who might have made
sweeter music than all, whose spirit's chords were all jangled and
tuneless, and whose ear seemed closed to the concord of melodious
sounds. _My_ soul was not tuned to harmony now, but still there was
something soothing in its influence, and it relieved me from the
necessity of talking, the exertion of _seeming_ what I could not _be_.
It was a luxury to glide unnoticed on the stream of thought, though dark
the current, and leading into troubled waters. It was a luxury to think
that the sighs of the heart might breathe unheard in the midst of the
soft rolling waves of Edith's melody, or the dashing billows of
Margaret's. Sometimes when I imagined myself entirely unobserved, and
suffered the cloud of sadness that brooded over my spirits to float
outwards, if I accidentally raised my eyes, I met those of Richard Clyde
fixed on me with an expression of such intense and thrilling sympathy, I
would start with a vague consciousness of guilt for having elicited such
expressive glances.

Madge was playing as only Madge could play, and Edith standing near the
door that opened into the saloon in the front parlor. She looked
unusually pale, and her countenance was languid. Was she thinking of
Julian, the young artist at the Falls, and wondering if the brief
romance of their love were indeed a dream? All at once a change, quick
as the electric flash, passed over her face. A bright, rosy cloud rolled
over its pallor, like morning breaking in Alpine snows. Even the paly
gold of her hair seemed to catch the glory that so suddenly and
absolutely illumined her