it? By what words did my heart make itself known? I
remember not. All was as a dream that falls upon a restless, feverish
night, and fades away as the eyes unclose on the peace of a cloudless
heaven, on the bliss of a golden sun. A new morrow seemed indeed upon
the earth when I woke from a life-long yesterday,--her dear hand in
mine, her sweet face bowed upon my breast.

And then there was that melodious silence in which there is no sound
audible from without; yet within us there is heard a lulling celestial
music, as if our whole being, grown harmonious with the universe, joined
from its happy deeps in the hymn that unites the stars.

In that silence our two hearts seemed to make each other understood, to
be drawing nearer and nearer, blending by mysterious concord into the
completeness of a solemn union, never henceforth to be rent asunder.

At length I said softly: "And it was here on this spot that I first saw
you,--here that I for the first time knew what power to change our world
and to rule our future goes forth from the charm of a human face!"

Then Lilian asked me timidly, and without lifting her eyes, how I had
so seen her, reminding me that I promised to tell her, and had never yet
done so.

And then I told her of the strange impulse that bad led me into the
grounds, and by what chance my steps had been diverted down the path
that wound to the glade; how suddenly her form had shone upon my
eyes, gathering round itself the rose hues of the setting sun, and how
wistfully those eyes had followed her own silent gaze into the distant
heaven.

As I spoke, her hand pressed mine eagerly, convulsively, and, raising
her face from my breast, she looked at me with an intent, anxious
earnestness. That look!--twice before it had thrilled and perplexed me.

"What is there in that look, oh, my Lilian, which tells me that there
is something that startles you,--something you wish to confide, and yet
shrink from explaining? See how, already, I study the fair book from
which the seal has been lifted! but as yet you must aid me to construe
its language."

"If I shrink from explaining, it is only because I fear that I cannot
explain so as to be understood or believed. But you have a right to know
the secrets of a life which you would link to your own. Turn your face
aside from me; a reproving look, an incredulous smile, chill--oh, you
cannot guess how they chill me, when I would approach that which to me
is so serious and