crown his hopes-induce her to become his wife. A dreary pause ensued. It might have seemed that even nature sympathized in the disappointment of one human heart, so hushed and still was all around. The silence was broken by Mr. Temple. His voice had recovered the wonted calm of its low, deep accents as thus he spoke : "And in this world of imagination-this dream-land sphere which you own, alas! to have been no coral strands or balmy groves of the natural world, but the glittering shores, the giddy mazes of society-there wherein you have long in fancy loved to wander, and now in the might of your innocence and purity of heart, so confidently and gladly haste to enter and prove their reality. Tell me, amongst all the features of your glowing picture, has your mind formed for itself hopes and aspirations, which have in any degree stood in the way of those which I had dared to entertain? Have your dreams carried you thus far, or do you go into the world, with-at least on this one point, your heart and feelings, I should rather say-your fancy, disengaged?" He did not speak as if in mockery and disdain to a weak and romantic girl, but with the serious delicate kindness of one whose very skill and knowledge in diving amongst the fantastic images of the human heart, is all the less moved to scorn or derision at the conception of its hidden enormities. Mary Seaham started. The crimson blood suffused her pure pale cheek. She shrank from the enquiring scrutiny of that dark eye bent down upon her, as if she felt that it had power to draw forth into light and substance every indistinct shadow, each vague imagination which had ever floated across her mind, a power too, which it was not possible by commonplace subterfuge to evade. Something also in that dark eye strangely affected her at that moment; the impression it produced, connecting itself in an indescribable manner, with the very dream and fancy, Mr. Temple's searching words had stirred up within her conscience. But the sense and spirit of her soul's pure innocence soon came to Mary Seaham's relief. She shook off the morbid consciousness, and with ingenuous courage, turning with bright open face to her inquirer, replied: "That I have had many a foolish dream, Mr. Temple, connected with the world of my imagination, I will not attempt to deny, but to the dignity of hopes and aspirations, I assure you, they have never yet arrived-never attained to such weight and importance in my mind, as would lead me to the folly or madness of allowing them to interfere with the substantial good-the real blessing which have this evening been laid before my unworthy acceptance, and which-" Enough!" interrupted Mr. Temple, as if to save himself, and her, the pain of further explanation as to the motives which had forbidden. the acceptance of those acknowledged blessings. Enough dear Miss Seaham. Dream on, and never may you wake from the pure and blameless dreams, which, whatever be their nature, can alone have taken rise in such a soul. Never may you awake from these to dark sorrowful reality. But should you so awake, and find those dreams dispersed, and Providence should again place us in each other's paths, remember. . . . But alas!" he broke off abruptly, "of what avail such imaginings? May God preserve you in this evil world! is all that remains for me to pray." He wrung her hand in strong emotion, and when Mary Seaham raised her tearful eyes to thank him for his fervent vow, Mr. Temple had turned away, his tall form was already to be seen slowly disappearing across the darkening common-and this long and singular interview was at an end. Mary in her turn hurried home, and all that had passed seemed to her recollection but as a bewildering dream, when she found herself once |