Ursula loved with simplicity. She said to Maurice, "I love you--I am happy--and I thank you for it!" The old gray house was the only scene of these interviews. Ursula worked with unabated diligence, and never left her parents. But the walls of that narrow dwelling no longer confined her soul: it had risen to freedom, and taken its flight. The sweet magic of hope brightens not only the future, but the present, and through the medium of its all-powerful prism changes the coloring of all things. The old house was as mean-looking and gloomy as ever, but one feeling, enshrined in the heart of a woman, changed it to a palace. Dreams of hope, although you fleet and vanish like golden clouds in the sky, yet come, come to us ever! Those who have never known you, are a thousand times poorer than those who live to regret you! Thus there passed a happy time for Ursula. But a day came when Maurice entering her room in haste, said, "Dearest, we must hasten our marriage; the regiment is about to be moved to another garrison, and we must be ready to set out." "Are we going far, Maurice?" "Does it frighten my Ursula to think of seeing distant countries? There are many lands more beautiful than this." "Oh, no, Maurice, not for myself, but for my parents: they are too old to bear a long journey." Maurice looked at his betrothed without speaking. Although he well knew that, in order to share his wandering destiny, Ursula must leave her parents, yet he had never reflected seriously on the subject. He had foreseen her grief, but confiding in her affection, he had thought that his devoted love would soothe every sorrow of which he was not himself the cause. It was now necessary to come to an explanation; and sad at the inevitable pain which he was about to inflict on his betrothed, Maurice took her hand, made her sit down in her accustomed place, and said, gently, "Dearest, it would be impossible for your father and mother to accompany us in our wandering life. Until now, my Ursula, we have led a loving, dreamy life, without entering soberly into our future plans. I have no fortune but my sword; and now, at the commencement of my career, my income is so small, that we shall have to submit together to many privations. I reckon on your courage; but you alone must follow me. The presence of your parents would only serve to entail misery on them, and hopeless poverty on us." "Leave my father and my mother!" cried Ursula. "Leave them, with their little property, in this house; confide them to careful hands; and follow the fortunes of your husband." "Leave my father and my mother!" repeated Ursula. "But do you know that the pittance they possess would never suffice for their support--that without their knowledge, I work to increase it--and that, during many years, I have tended them alone?"