dreams of love and fair companionship had found but little harbour in his mind, stealing in upon his deeper thoughts but as transient visions, to be driven forth and bidden keep their place till a more convenient season. And such season, in the course of the peculiar work he had undertaken, the young student had boldly told himself might never occur. Now for the first time such dreams leapt forth in dazzling radiancy, and refused to be driven back. There was nothing for it but to look them fairly in the face, and, if sinful, reject them finally, once and for all. If not sinful--if indeed for him there might be the bliss of a pure earthly love, which should be the true sacrament of a deep spiritual union, and might be indulged in without casting any shadow on his union with his God--then--ah, how beautiful might life become--how infinitely sweet would be the work for Christ, shared between two beings, whose love for Him would be their own strongest bond of union, and whose souls would ever be as one in their service of Him in this world, and in their yet closer worship and service in the world to come! To have loved one who could not share in the deepest longings of his nature would have been an impossibility to the young chaplain, whose heart was so far uplifted above the things of mere mortal sense, that they alone could never enchant him. But in the pure, sweet face of her whose image had taken thus sudden possession of his heart he saw a true picture of the beautiful soul within, and read clearly those deep, inner sympathies which, more than her exceeding mortal loveliness, touched his own soul, and had already struck within it that strange new chord, which, whether it sounded for joy or sorrow, could never be silent again. Percival Vere wandered on, far over the mountain, in the still eventide, by hill and dale, nor stopped his march and his musing till, far up on the lonely mountain-side, he came upon one of nature's beautiful spots which he had often wished to see--the cavern whence sprang the far-famed river Gwynnon, bubbling up in this solitary hiding-place out of the secret places of the earth, and trickling forth, down its steep, rocky bed, in hurrying eagerness to reach the sunny valley, where it might spread itself at will over the flowery meadows, and become the broad and noble stream, for which, little trickling handful of water as it now was, it felt itself to be destined. A second streamlet, venturing forth more shyly from out a smaller cave hard by, joined it with slower and more timid footstep, rippling modestly over its smooth pebbles, till, caught by the noisier streamlet into its passionate embrace, the two sped gaily together down the mountain-side in one laughing little river. "Thus should our lives flow together," said the young chaplain, following with shining, eager eyes the course of the merry brooklet below his feet; "and thus, in the sunlight of God's continual presence, should