e surface on which they fall. Rove, repine, murmur
on! Such was my fate, but the resemblance is no more. I shall no longer
be a lonely and regretful being; my affections will no longer waste
themselves upon barrenness and stone. I go among the living and
warm world of mortal energies and desires; my existence shall glide
alternately through crested cities, and bowers in which Poetry worships
Love; and the clear depths of my heart shall reflect whatever its young
dreams have shadowed forth, the visioned form, the gentle and fairy
spirit, the Eve of my soul's imagined and foreboded paradise."

Venting, in this incoherent strain, the exultation which filled my
thoughts, I wandered on, throughout the whole day, till my spirits
had exhausted themselves by indulgence; and, wearied alike by mental
excitement and bodily exertion, I turned, with slow steps, towards the
house. As I ascended the gentle acclivity on which it stood, I saw a
figure approaching towards me: the increasing shades of the evening did
not allow me to recognize the shape until it was almost by my side; it
was Aubrey.

Of late I had seen very little of him. His devotional studies and habits
seemed to draw him from the idle pursuits of myself and my uncle's
guests; and Aubrey was one peculiarly susceptible of neglect, and sore,
to morbidity, at the semblance of unkindness; so that he required to be
sought, and rarely troubled others with advances: that night, however,
his greeting was unusually warm.

"I was uneasy about you, Morton," said he, drawing my arm in his; "you
have not been seen since morning; and, oh! Morton, my uncle told me,
with tears in his eyes, that you were going to leave us. Is it so?"

"Had he tears in his eyes? Kind old man! And you, Aubrey, shall you,
too, grieve for my departure?"

"Can you ask it, Morton? But why will you leave us? Are we not all
happy here, now? _Now_ that there is no longer any barrier or difference
between us,--_now_ that I may look upon you, and listen to you, and
love you, and _own_ that I love you? Why will you leave us now? And
[continued Aubrey, as if fearful of giving me time to answer]--and every
one praises you so here; and my uncle and all of us are so proud of you.
Why should you desert our affections merely because they are not new?
Why plunge into that hollow and cold world which all who have tried it
picture in such fearful hues? Can you find anything there to repay you
for the love you leave behi