Certain it is that Theresa passed in those few moments to a new existence--to a being wholly different from her former self. The rainbow tints had faded from her sky, and the stars in her futurity had ceased to shine. What to her were all her mental gifts, when they had failed to win the love she valued? And now the nature so impulsive and ingenuous was impelled by the instinct of woman's pride to assume the mantle of concealment, to learn its task of suffering and silence. She could not, without betraying her true feelings, seem depressed, when all about her was happier than ever, and not a shadow rested on the hearts around her. Her mother was constitutionally tranquil; and Amy, in the relying gladness of her early youth, saw nothing to fear, and all things to hope. It was a trying effort for Theresa to bury the conflict of her impetuous emotions in the stillness of her own bosom--the more trying because she had never before known cause for reserve; but the power of endurance in womanhood is mighty, and she did conceal even from my watchful eyes, the triumph of certainty over hope. I knew not then that the silver chord was already severed, and the veil lifted from the pale face of grief, never again in mercy to lend its secrecy. The extreme youth of Amy alone delayed her marriage, and the following year was appointed as the time of its celebration. In the meanwhile the lovers would meet almost daily, and there seemed nothing but happiness before them. And she, the highly endowed, the richly gifted, what was to be her lot? Even now the mists were gathering around her; her faith in the hereafter was lessened; disappointment haunted her onward steps, and memory darkened to regret. Poor Theresa! there was many a pang in her experience then proudly hidden from all human gaze; and her suffering was not the less because she felt that it arose in part from self-deception, and from its very character was beyond the solace of sympathy.