"'You will not stay with your people,' she said, 'but will be a great traveller; and when in some far-away country, you will be sick--mighty sick; and a beautiful woman will find you, and she will nurse you, and you will love that beautiful woman, and she will love you, and she will marry you, and you will not come to reside with your people any more.' Now, Miss Alice, I have wandered far away from my home, have been sick, very sick, and a beautiful woman has nursed me until I am well, and oh! from my heart I do love that beautiful woman. So far all of this wild prediction has been verified; and it remains with you, my dear Alice, to say if the latter portion shall be. You are too candid to delay reply, and too sincere to speak equivocally." She trembled as she looked up into his face and read it for a moment. "You are too much of a gentleman to speak as you have, unless it came from your heart. O my God! is this reality, or am I dreaming?" She drooped her head upon his shoulder, and said: "'Whither thou goest I will go; thy house shall be my house, and thy God my God.'" The full moon was just above the horizon, and the long dark shadows veiled them from view. The judge rode in at the gate, and leaving his horse, went directly into the house. A moment after a carriage drove into the court, and from it dismounted the brother-in-law sot and her weird sister; for indeed she was a very Hecate in looks and mischief. Alice stole away to her chamber; and the happy stranger to wander among the shrubs, regardless of the damp and chill. Here were two young hearts conscious of happiness; but was it a happiness derived from the respective merits and congenial natures of the two known to each other? They were comparatively strangers, knowing little of the antecedents of each other. Each was unhappily situated--the one from poverty, the other owing to her wealth; the one ardently desirous of bettering pecuniarily his position, the other to release herself from restraints that were tyrannical and to enjoy that independence which she felt was her natural right. Might not these considerations override the purer impulses of the heart arising from that regard for qualities which win upon the mind until ripened first into deep respect, then mellowed into tender affection by association protracted and intimate? They had been reared in societies radically different: their early impressions were equally antagonistic; but their aims were identical--to escape from present personal embarrassments.