ary tablets and reliefs that decorate the interior
of the sacred edifice. As the newly-married pair were about to step
into the carriage at the door, a thin figure in black approached the
bride, and laid its hand upon her arm. The countenance was not
visible. The bride uttered a sharp cry of pain and terror, and the
figure instantly stepped back.

"Hold up your torch, there, sexton," cried the painter; "some one has
insulted the bride."

A tall figure was seen stealing away through the tombstones in the
churchyard, to which he had probably gained access through a breach in
the wall, at that time wholly ruinous.

It is not our intention to describe the happiness of Malise Grey and
his strangely-found and strangely-wedded bride. Enough to say, it was
like all the circumstances that composed his existence--dream-like and
strange. So vivid were his dreams and reveries, that he often wondered
whether they were not the actual, and his marriage life the imaginary,
part of his existence. He could not give himself up to enjoyment; and
sometimes, when his young wife would have lavished on him the wealth
of her innocent caresses, he turned from her moodily, and muttered,
"What have I to do with a spirit bride? When the sun rises, these
shadows will disperse."

Esther Grey had often solicited her husband to paint her portrait,
since the likeness in the family picture showed her under the
influence of grief. She wished a record of her happiness. Grey set
about complying with her request. He assumed the task in a moment of
inspired and fresh feeling, and went to work with heart and soul. His
sketch was instantaneously executed, and then

"His touches they flew like leaves in a storm;
And the pure pearly white, and the carnation warm,
Contending in harmony, glowed."

Suddenly he threw down his pencil, and paced the apartment to and fro
with rapid strides. "The doomed look!" he muttered, "the doomed look!
Esther, I can paint no more to-day."

But the morrow found him early at his task. A few hours' work
completed a portrait which, for fidelity of likeness, harmony of
accessories, and felicity of coloring, was almost unsurpassable. Yet
the painter refused to have it framed, and concealed it from view
behind a curtain in his studio.

A day or two afterwards, a stranger called upon the artist. He was a
tall, thin man, attired in a threadbare suit of black bombazine. He
was frightfully pale. His jaws were prominent,