Edward Stanton surpassed even all his former brilliant efforts! Was it caused by the excitement of the subject, the intellectual intoxication of success? No:—his hour of triumph had arrived, the goal he had struggled for years to attain was won!—for in the Ladies’ Gallery, immediately over the Speaker’s chair, and directly in front of the orator, sat Amy Laverty; she who, in early youth, had so cruelly scorned him; she who had withered the freshness of his heart, and dried up the gushing fountains of love in his soul! He saw not the crowd around him—he heard not the murmurs of applause—he heeded not the triumphant glance of political friends nor the gloomy looks of discomfited opponents—his soul was on his tongue, and as the jewels of rhetoric, the brilliant gems of oratory, and the diamond shafts of satire fell from his lips—he poured them all,—prodigally, and with a feeling of supernatural power, as an offering before the shrine of his young, blighted and cruelly crushed love! At length he closed amid the plaudits of the privileged few on the floor of the House, and the waving of snowy ’kerchief from the gallery. In the midst a stifled sob was heard, then a piercing shriek! “A lady in the gallery had fainted—from the heat!” Strange, inexplicable mystery of the human heart! Two wells of passion, long sealed up and apparently dried, had burst their confines! Oh fame! oh popular applause! how little knew any in that Hall, why the young orator was so transcendently brilliant that day!—How little divined the companions of Amy what was the cause of that sudden fainting fit! The hospitable mansion of Secretary Woodbury was thrown open that evening. Gay forms crowded every room and silvery voices resounded through every hall. In a remote corner of one apartment, within the recess of a window, stood Henry Stanton and Amy Laverty. Their hands were intertwined; his eyes beamed with pride and hers with happiness. We have but a few words of their conversation to chronicle. “Why—why, ask me if I love you?” said Amy. “Why?” responded Stanton in that deep voice and choking utterance which are only assumed when the heart speaks audibly; “why? that I may feel that my day dreams are now reality: that I may know that time has worn away those faults of early education, which clouded the brightness of your native excellence; that I may be assured that we have both come out purified from the crucible of suffering, the fuel to which has been supplied from our very hearts! I would know that you love me, that I may be supremely happy.” “Be happy then, as far as the knowledge of my love can make you so,” frankly replied Amy—“but oh Henry, in our after life, I fear me, I shall often have occasion to resist the tempter against which you have this day warned me, and to whose power over me, time, more than your words, had opened my eyes! I feel that while I have life I must have pride!” “Amy!” “Yes Harry:—pride in thee!”