I know not how it is, but amongst all the wild theories and dreams that have been formed about the human heart and its passions, none ever suited itself to my fancy so well as that--it is an eastern one, I believe--which supposes the hearts of two persons destined to love each other formed, by the angel whose task it is, out of the same clay: so that in whatever regions they may be placed, and in whatever different state of life, when they do meet, there is always a world of undefinable sympathies between them, and affections apart from all the rest of the earth. Perhaps it is only a few, and those by especial favour, that the angel forms of these twin hearts; all the rest must wander about the world without any soft companionship of feeling. Be that as it may, from the very first moment that Charles Durand had met Julie Villars new sensations had been born in his bosom. She was lovely, the loveliest perhaps he had ever seen, though he had been long accustomed to mingle with the bright and the fair; but in her there was the beauty of simplicity, the charm of native unaffected innocence, and that was what he had seldom met with at all, and certainly never before so rarely combined. There were many more---- But what is the use of searching any further for that which made him love her from the first. Grant but the eastern supposition to be true, that their hearts were formed of one clay, and the matter is settled at once. A little superstition, and a few good broad theories, save man a great deal of trouble and research, and, perhaps, lead him as right as any of the hundred roads which philosophers and moralists are always busy paving for him. During his illness, which was severe from the accident he had met with, his attachment had time to become fixed; and he did not lose the opportunity of endeavouring to excite a return. In truth, it was not very difficult; Julie's heart was cast in nature's gentlest mould, and this was the first time that any thing like affection had approached it. From her infancy she had formed for herself companionship from whatever was near her. She had watched each individual flower as it blossomed, till she loved it, and loved it only to mourn the fall of its fragile beauty! She had taught the birds to know her, and to sing their wild notes in her path without fear. But now, it was something far far beyond anything she had ever felt or ever dreamt of. What a new bright state of existence became hers, when Charles Durand's love first flashed upon her mind. She painted to herself all the charms of reciprocal attachment in its brightest state. She knew nothing of the world and its falsehood. She knew nothing of human nature and its weakness, and she fancied it all without a cloud. She invested every thing in the verdant colouring of her own heart, and lighted it up with the sunshine of her own mind, and it made a picture she could have gazed on for ever.