“I should have loved her dearly, Edward?” “You could not have helped it, for she was one of the purest, gentlest beings I ever knew.” “Describe her to me.” “That is impossible, for, graceful as a fawn and with spirits buoyant and elastic, her features, at one moment gleaming with hope, and the next, subdued in sympathy, were changeable as the aspects of the summer cloud, but beautiful in all its changes—for the light it reflected was borrowed from heaven.” “Hers, then, was the beauty of expression.” “Yes, of angelic expression, and yet her countenance was exquisitely lovely in repose. It reminded one of an inland lake, which, when serene and undisturbed, reflects the flowers and the foliage around it; but, when agitated, the shadows on its surface, the tiny crests of foam and mimic waves brattling on the shore, all its wild and shifting beauties are its own. She died on an early summer’s morning, the dew-drop yet sparkling on the blade which, while it bent, it fertilized; and the whole earth, in one gush of fragrance, sent up its tribute to the mighty hand that made it.” “Oh, Edward! it were happiness thus to die.” “Ay, dearest, it is only a spirit pure and spotless as your own, that can realize that death has no terrors where life has no reproaches.” A pressure of the hand was her only reply, for his eyes were filled with tears, and she felt too much moved to speak. After a slight pause he proceeded. “In less than twelve months, my mother followed her to the grave, and the day and the hour, the occasion and the scene, are deeply graven in my memory; but,” he continued, observing her emotion, “I will not distress you with the sad recital, although the sorrows of that bitter hour were not without their solace—for, feeling that our loss would be her gain, the showers and the sunshine, the alternate gloom and brightness of the day without, were typical of our hopes and fears. My patrimony was considerable, and my mother had named a distant relative and seemingly attached friend as her executor and my guardian.