ns with me. If you should grow
oblivious--why, it is I that shall suffer, and not you."

"Oh, waste of words on what can never be!" Exclaimed Montigny:
"cease to doubt me. Forget you! Love's memories are immortal. Love
writes the lineaments of the beloved in rock, not sand."

"Yet rocks may lose their effigies, the pyramids their inscriptions,
the strong-clamped monument may tumble, and the marble bust, by
time, may let the salient features fall into one indistinguishable
round," she answered doubtingly.

"They may;" rejoined Montigny: "but neither flowing time nor chafing
circumstance can erase affection from the constant mind. Mind is
more obdurate than steel; and love, the tenderest of the train of
passions, is, in its memory, as indestructible as gold;--gold that
resists the all-corroding fire. No; the fire may melt the impress
from the seal, the sun the angles from the stony ice; the jagged
rocks may from encounter with the wind and rain grow smooth; this
hilly globe may grow at length to be as level as is the sea, and
every jutting headland of the shore may crumble and disappear; but
your bright image must to the eventide of life's cogitation, stay,
like a sacred peak whose lofty brow stands ever gilded in the
setting sun. Forget you! little hazard: he whose heart is impressed
with the absent's form, needs wear no miniature upon the breast;
the scholar who knows his task by rote, needs not retain his eye
upon the book."

"Hearts may prove false," she answered solemnly, "and tasks to
treacherous memory committed may be forgotten; but will you forget
these weighty words: will you be constant, oh, will you prove true;
for did I give you all I have, my love, what were there left me
should you throw it away?"

"Injurious and incredulous one," returned Montigny, "save Lucifer,
who ever threw from him heaven?"

"Forgive me," she replied, "it is but a timid girl that speaks.
She did not doubt you, though she sought to prove you. Yet are you
sure you love her? Ask your heart, then render me its reply, as
one might do, who having listened for me to the murmuring shell,
should bring me tidings of the storm-vexed sea. Vow not, but listen."

Montigny seemed for awhile to listen to his heart; then, looking
at her, replied:

"Surer than is assurance itself I am yours. Say that you are mine,
and every further word shall seem only to be redundant and
apochryphal; for when love's lips have made their revelation, what
mo