[3] By the Authoress of "OLIVE," "THE OGILVIES," and "THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY," three charming works, recently published by Harper and Brothers. Long, very long, it is since I first knew this. Gradually, not suddenly, the great mystery of love overshadowed me, until at last I found out the truth, that I was my own no more. All the world's beauty I saw through his eyes--all the world's goodness and greatness came reflected through his noble heart. In his presence I was as a child: I forgot myself, my own existence, hopes, and aims. Every where--at all times and all places--his power was upon me. He seemed to absorb and inhale my whole soul into his, until I became like a cloud melting away in sunshine, and vanishing from the face of heaven. All this reads very wild and mad; but, oh! Laurence--Laurence! none would marvel at it who had once looked on thee! Not that he is a perfect Apollo--this worshiped husband of mine: you may meet a score far handsomer. But who cares? Not I! All that is grand, all that is beautiful, all that makes a man look godlike through the inward shining of his godlike soul--I see in my Laurence. His eyes, soft, yet proud--his wavy hair--his hand that I sit and clasp--his strong arm that I lean on--all compose an image wherein I see no flaw. Nay, I could scarce believe in any beauty that bore no likeness to Laurence. Thus is my husband--what am I? His wife--and no more. Every thing in me is only a reflection of him. Sometimes I even marvel that he loved me, so unworthy as I seem: yet, when heaven rained on me the rich blessing of his love, my thirsty soul drank it in, and I felt that had it never come, for lack of it I must have died. I did almost die, for the joy was long in coming. Though--as I know now--he loved me well and dearly; yet for some reason or other he would not tell me so. The vail might never have fallen from our hearts, save for one blessed chance. I will relate it. I love to dream over that brief hour, to which my whole existence can never show a parallel. We were walking all together--my sisters, Laurence Shelmerdine, and I--when there came on an August thunder-storm. Our danger was great, for we were in the midst of a wood. My sisters fled; but I, being weak and ill--alas! my heart was breaking quietly, though he knew it not--I had no strength to fly. He was too kind to forsake me: so we staid in an open space of the wood, I clinging to his arm, and thinking--God forgive me!--that if I could only die then, close to him, encompassed by his gentle care, it would be so happy--happier far than my life was then. What he thought, I knew not. He spoke in hurried, broken words, and turned his face from me all the while.