enial lustre of that soft and
brilliant sky when we are alone; when the soft voice no longer sighs,
and the bright eye no longer beams, and the form we worship no longer
moves before our enraptured vision. Our happiness becomes too much the
result of reflection. Our faith is not less devout, but it is not so
fervent. We believe in the miracle, but we no longer witness it.

And as the light was extinguished in the chamber of Henrietta Temple,
Ferdinand Armine felt for a moment as if his sun had set for ever. There
seemed to be now no evidence of her existence. Would tomorrow ever come?
And if it came, would the rosy hours indeed bring her in their radiant
car? What if this night she died? He shuddered at this wild imagination.
Yet it might be; such dire calamities had been. And now he felt his
life was involved in hers, and that under such circumstances his instant
death must complete the catastrophe. There was then much at stake. Had
it been yet his glorious privilege that her fair cheek should have
found a pillow on his heart; could he have been permitted to have rested
without her door but as her guard; even if the same roof at any distance
had screened both their heads; such dark conceptions would not perhaps
have risen up to torture him; but as it was, they haunted him like evil
spirits as he took his lonely way over the common to gain his new abode.

Ah! the morning came, and such a morn! Bright as his love! Ferdinand had
passed a dreamy night, and when he woke he could not at first recognise
the locality. It was not Armine. Could it be Ducie? As he stretched his
limbs and rubbed his eyes, he might be excused for a moment fancying
that all the happiness of yesterday was indeed a vision. He was, in
truth, sorely perplexed as he looked around the neat but humble chamber,
and caught the first beam of the sun struggling through a casement
shadowed by the jessamine. But on his heart there rested a curl of dark
and flowing hair, and held together by that very turquoise of which he
fancied he had been dreaming. Happy, happy Ferdinand! Why shouldst thou
have cares? And may not the course even of thy true love run smooth?

He recks not of the future. What is the future to one so blessed? The
sun is up, the lark is singing, the sky is bluer than the love-jewel
at his heart. She will be here soon. No gloomy images disturb him now.
Cheerfulness is the dowry of the dawn.

Will she indeed be here? Will Henrietta Temple indeed