Helen Burnett was the loveliest girl I have ever seen, and I loved her with all the passionate devotedness of a young and ardent heart; she was to me the light of life, for all was dark when I was not with her. She was the only daughter of our village curate, and resided near our family mansion. We had sported together beneath the venerable trees of the park from the earliest days of childhood. Until I left home for college she had seemed to me as a sister, and I had loved her as such until, on returning home from a long absence at college, I found a blushing and beautiful young woman where I had expected, forgetting the rapid work of time, to meet with the same playful and lovely child I had kissed at parting. She was, indeed, beautiful; tall, graceful, and even commanding in figure, while the mildness of an angel reposed in the glance of her deep-blue eyes, and the sweet smile that so often visited her lips, while her pleasantly modulated voice was music itself. "A lyre of widest range, Touched by all passion--did fall down and glance From tone to tone, and glided through all change of liveliest utterance." Her hair was of the darkest shade of brown, resting in soft wave-like smoothness above her high, pale forehead. Alas! that she was _so_ lovely! had she been less so, either I might not have loved her, or I might have been permitted by fortune to have been happy with her. After leaving college, my time was all devoted to Helen. She loved me no less than I loved her; and I looked forward to a quiet and happy life, picturing the future with colorings of the brightest hope and joyfulness. It was at this time that my brother returned from a long tour of the Continent. He was one of the handsomest men of the day, and had been distinguished by the appellation which had accompanied him from court to court, of "the handsome Englishman." He was of a medium stature, and faultlessly proportioned; his expansive and intellectual forehead seemed the seat of lofty thought, and his dark flashing eye, intensely expressive, seemed to penetrate to the heart of all who met its glance. I see him now--not in his glorious beauty, but pale--pale, touched by the cold fingers of death. I had too much of the pride of my race to live as a dependent on my brother's bounty, yet I could not bear the thought of leaving Helen. I was in no situation to marry, and in an undecided state of mind I suffered the days to glide away. My brother had just come back from a day's angling in the trout-stream that flowed through his lands. He met me at the park-gate. "Well, John," said I, "what luck to-day?" "O, William," said he, without heeding my question, "I have seen the most charming girl--the loveliest one that breathes. She outvies all I have seen in my travels; do you know her. She is the curate's daughter." I felt a sickness at heart, like the bitterness of death--was it a presentiment, a warning of evil to come. "Say, William?"