e leaned over her chair, and his eye rested
upon his own picture, and a letter in his own writing, over which the
tears of the young orphan flowed fast.

A moment more of agitated happiness for one, of unconscious and
continued sadness for the other,--

"'T is past, her lover's at her feet."

And what indeed "was to them the world beside, with all its changes
of time and tide"? Joy, hope, all blissful and bright sensations, lay
mingled, like meeting waters, in one sunny stream of heartfelt and
unfathomable enjoyment; but this passed away, and the remembrance of
bitterness and evil succeeded.

"Oh, Algernon!" said Isabel, in a low voice, "is this your promise?"

"Believe me," said Mordaunt, for it was indeed he, "I have struggled
long with my feelings, but in vain; and for both our sakes, I rejoice at
the conquest they obtained. I listened only to a deceitful delusion when
I imagined I was obeying the dictates of reason. Ah, dearest, why should
we part for the sake of dubious and distant evils, when the misery of
absence is the most certain, the most unceasing evil we can endure?"

"For your sake, and therefore for mine!" interrupted Isabel, struggling
with her tears. "I am a beggar and an outcast. You must not link your
fate with mine. I could bear, Heaven knows how willingly, poverty and
all its evils for you and with you; but I cannot bring them upon you."

"Nor will you," said Mordaunt, passionately, as he covered the hand he
held with his burning kisses. "Have I not enough for both of us? It is
my love, not poverty, that I beseech you to share."

"No! Algernon, you cannot deceive me; your own estate will be torn from
you by the law: if you marry me, your cousin will not assist you; I, you
know too well, can command nothing; and I shall see you, for whom in
my fond and bright dreams I have presaged everything great and exalted,
buried in an obscurity from which your talents can never rise, and
suffering the pangs of poverty and dependence and humiliation like
my own; and--and--I--should be the wretch who caused you all. Never,
Algernon, never!--I love you too--too well!"

But the effort which wrung forth the determination of the tone in which
these words were uttered was too violent to endure; and, as the full
desolation of her despair crowded fast and dark upon the orphan's mind,
she sank back upon her chair in very sickness of soul, nor heeded, in
her unconscious misery, that her hand was yet clasped by