In this position they each grew unutterably dear to the other--every moment, every thought, was full to both of the image of either. There is something inexpressibly winning in beauty and grace--it is a sweet blessing when our household companion charms our senses by the loveliness of her person, and makes the eye gladly turn to her, to be gratified by such a form and look as we would travel miles to see depicted on canvass. It soothed many a spasm of pain, and turned many an hour of suffering into placid content, when Falkner watched the movements of his youthful friend. You might look in her face for days, and still read something new, something sublime in the holy calm of her brow, in her serious, yet intelligent eyes; while all a woman's softness dwelt in the moulding of her cheeks and her dimpled mouth. Each word she said, and all she did, so became her, that it appeared the thing best to be said and done--and was accompanied by a fascination, both for eye and heart, which emanated from her purity and truth. Falkner grew to worship the very thought of her. She had not the wild spirits and trembling sensibility of her he had destroyed, but in her kind she was no way inferior. Yet though each, as it were, enjoyed the respite given by fortune to their worst fears, yet this very sense of transitory security was in its essence morbid and unnatural. A fever preyed nightly on Falkner, and there were ghastly streaks upon his brow that bespoke internal suffering and decay. Elizabeth grew paler and thinner--her step lost its elasticity, her voice became low-toned--her eyes were acquainted with frequent tears, and the lids grew heavy and dark. Both lived for ever in the presence of misery--they feared to move or speak, lest they should awaken the monster, then for a space torpid; but they spent their days under its shadow--the air they drew was chilled by its icy influence--no wholesome light-hearted mood of mind was ever theirs--they might pray and resign themselves, they might congratulate themselves on the safety of the passing moment; but each sand that flowed from the hourglass was weighed--each thought that passed through the brain was examined--every word uttered was pondered over. They were exhausted by the very vividness of their unsleeping endeavours to blunt their sensations.