“We must expect the storm. It will not be moonlight always. We must look for the cloud. Age, sickness, death!--ah! do these not follow on our footsteps, ever unerring, certain always, but so often rapid? Soon, how soon, they haunt us in the happiest moments--they meet us at every corner! They never altogether leave us.” “Enough, dear husband. Dwell not upon these gloomy thoughts. Ah! why should you--NOW?' “I will not; but there are others, Julia.” “What others? Evils?” “Sadder evils yet than these.” “Oh, no!--I hope not.” “Coldness of the once warm heart. The chill of affection in the loved one. Estrangement--indifference!--ah, Julia!” “Impossible, Edward! This can not, MUST not be, with us You do not think that I could be cold to you; and you--ah! surely YOU will never cease to love me?” “Never, I trust, never!” “No! you must not--SHALL not. Oh, Edward, let me die first before such a fear should fill my breast. You I love, as none was loved before. Without your love, I am nothing. If I can not hang upon you, where can I hang?” And she clung to me with a grasp as if life and death depended on it, while her sobs, as from a full heart, were insuppressible in spite of all her efforts. “Fear nothing, dearest Julia: do you not believe that I love you?” “Ah! if I did not, Edward--” “It is with you always to make me love you. You are as completely the mistress of my whole heart as if it had acknowledged no laws but yours from the beginning.” “What am I to do, dear Edward?” “Forbear--be indulgent--pity me and spare me!” “What mean you, Edward?” “That heart which is all and only yours, Julia, is yet, I am assured, a wilful and an erring heart! I feel that it is strange, wayward, sometimes unjust to others, frequently to itself. It is a cross-grained, capricious heart; you will find its exactions irksome.” “Oh, I know it better. You wrong yourself.” “No! In the solemn sweetness of this hour, dear Julia--now, while all things are sweet to our eyes, all things dear to our affections--I feel a chill of doubt and apprehension come over me. I am so happy--so unusually happy--that I can not feel sure that I am so--that my happiness will continue long. I will try, on my own part, to do nothing by which to risk its loss. But I feel that I am too wilful, at times, to be strong in keeping a resolution which is so very necessary to our mutual happiness. You must help--you must strengthen me, Julia.” “Oh, yes! but how? I will do anything--be anything.”