To know Margaret was to love her—yet she was not strictly beautiful; there may be features more regular, complexions more dazzling, and forms of more perfect symmetry than she possessed. She was one of those whose gentle and winning manners stole into your heart, and then only you saw her loveliness, or acknowledged the light of love and tenderness which beamed from her large, dark hazel eyes. Her beauty was not that which attracts the eye of every careless observer—it was the beauty of the mind and heart. Richard Lelland was at that time twenty-one, rather above the ordinary height, and of graceful, polished manners, with a frank and open countenance, at once a passport to your favor and respect. His complexion was almost as delicate as a girl’s, a large, full, dark-blue eye, and hair of rich wavy brown. Business detaining young Lelland in the vicinity of Willow Bank for some weeks longer than he had first anticipated, he took frequent opportunities of improving his acquaintance with Miss Gardner, and the interest she had first awakened in his heart soon ripened into a deep and fervent attachment. But he possessed a firmness and decision of character seldom met with in one so young; and he resolved to bury his love for Margaret in his own breast, until he could produce such testimonials as to family, etc., as should warrant his openly paying her his addresses. He therefore returned to the South leaving his love unspoken; but there is a language more eloquent even than words, and this had already made known to Margaret the sentiments of the young stranger; this, too, had whispered in the lover’s ear, thrilling his soul with ecstasy, that when he should ask the love of the pure and gentle girl, it would be his. Within the year the lovers were betrothed, with the full sanction of Margaret’s parents, with the proviso that their marriage should not be consummated until Lelland, who had now nothing but his salary to depend upon, should be in a situation better calculated for the maintenance of a family. This was as much his wish as theirs, for he loved Margaret too well to take her from all the comforts and luxuries of the paternal roof, only to offer in exchange the embarrassments and privations attendant upon a narrow and straitened income. For three years, therefore, early and late did he cheerfully give all his energies to his business, and at the end of that time became a partner in the mercantile house in whose employ he had so faithfully exerted himself. There was no longer, as it would seem, any impediment to his union with his adored Margaret. The wedding-day was appointed, and the happy Lelland, with all the rapture of a bridegroom, flew to claim his bride. Had the hand of misfortune been so long withheld but to crush with one fell blow so much of love and happiness?