When they looked out upon the earth, after this scene, during which they had been conscious of nothing but each other, the storm had fled beyond verdant hills, and a rainbow spanned all the visible landscape, seeming to them indeed a bow of promise. “O, we can surely be happy in such a world as this!” said Bessie, her face colored and illuminated by youth, hope, and love. “We will find a cloud castle somewhere,” responded the young man, pointing to the western sky, piled with purple and crimson. Bessie was about to accompany him to the gate on his departure, as was her simple and affectionate custom, when a voice called her up stairs. “O dear!” she exclaimed, pettishly. “It seems as if I couldn’t have a moment’s peace. Good by, my darling.” During the close of that day, at the hour which in Barham was known as “early candle-lighting,” the Lauson tragedy began to take form. The mysterious shadow which vaguely announced its on-coming was the disappearance from the family ken of that lighthouse of regularity, that fast-rooted monument of strict habit, Aunt Mercy. The kerosene lamp which had so long beamed upon her darnings and mendings, or upon her more æsthetic labors in behalf of the Barham sewing society, or upon the open yellow pages of her Scott’s Commentary and Baxter’s Saints’ Rest, now flared distractedly about the sitting-room, as if in amazement at her absence. Nowhere was seen her tall, thin, hard form, the truthful outward expression of her lean and sickly soul; nowhere was heard the afflicted squeak of her broad calfskin shoes, symbolical of the worryings of her fretful conscience. The doors which she habitually shut to keep out the night-draughts remained free to swing, and, if they could find an aiding hand or breeze, to bang, in celebration of their independence. The dog might wag his tail in wonder through the parlor, and the cat might profane the sofa with his stretchings and slumbers. At first the absence of Aunt Mercy merely excited such pleasant considerations as these. The fact was accepted as a relief from burdens; it tended towards liberty and jocoseness of spirit. The honest and well-meaning and devout woman had been the censor of the family, and, next after the iron-headed Squire, its dictator. Bessie might dance alone about the sober rooms, and play operatic airs and waltzes upon her much-neglected piano, without being called upon to assume sackcloth and ashes for her levity. The cheerful life which seemed to enter the house because Aunt Mercy had left it was a severe commentary on the sombre and unlovely character which her diseased sense of duty had driven her to give to her unquestionably sincere religious sentiment. It hinted that if she should be taken altogether away from the family, her loss would awaken little mourning, and would soon be forgotten.