your cheeks, and there is new vigor in the sparkling of your eyes; and though this little and transparent hand, be but the shadow of its former self, will not the summer’s genial warmth, and the tranquillity that waits upon reciprocated love, and unclouded prosperity, soon, very soon restore it? I have a strange sensation at my heart, which your altered appearance translates into a precursor of happiness. My spirit seems to have burst from the trammels of earth, and to revel in an atmosphere where love and hope are fadeless. You do not smile, love! Does not your heart echo my joy? Does not the same happy presentiment pervade your heart, and gild the future in brilliant colors?” “I have the same presentiment, but my heart refuses to give to it the flattering meaning with which your hopes have invested it. I always feared that our love was doomed never to meet with happy consummation. Even in the first hours of our passion, when not one thought of grief should have intruded, there was a fear that would not leave me, of future sorrow. Our love was never meant for happiness on earth; it was too exclusive—too perfect. The future would hold out no attraction or hope, did death rudely destroy the state of present perfect bliss. But to the weary and heavy-hearted, death opens a path to peace, and even to the happy and joyful, a home of more blissful and lasting happiness. I look on death as a kind and tender friend, who releases my soul from its weak material companion, which, with its decay and rottenness, clogs that immortal part. That it separates me from thee is my only grief; my poor heart rebels against it, and clings to thee with a tenacity which nothing can relax. But oh! my beloved, if, as we are told, the infinite space is peopled with disembodied spirits, who wander round those spots where centers all they loved—all that life has rendered dear, shall I not be with you ever? Sleeping or waking, I will hover round you, and as you wander over those spots sacred to our young hearts’ deep devotion, I will be upon your heart as I am now; my spirit shall be upon your memory, and awaken it to thoughts of those passionate hours. I will throw a charmed halo round the Past, will sweeten the Present, and will gild the Future with visions of fadeless bliss in heaven with our God. Death cannot separate our souls! It shrinks the body into dust, but there is an immortal link which binds soul unto soul, that death can never break.”