Joseph, in his own tumultuous exaltation, felt the trembling of her hand. He heard her sob. He saw her cover her face as if to hide her tears, and caught her in his arms, folding her in, and pressing her to his heart in a tender transport. To dry those tears was now his rightful privilege; and very tenderly and softly did he whisper in her ear, bidding her calm herself and have no fear, for he loved and worshipped her, and would devote his life to shelter her from care or harm. And now the stars came out upon the night, looking down with friendly understanding eyes, like beings of a higher sphere, approving the troth-plight and bidding them be happy. They sat them down upon a broad flat rock; her hand was nestling in his palm, and her form drawn up against him within his encircling arm; and the silent peace of night, tranquil and still beneath the keeping of the kindly stars, wore in upon their agitated spirits, helping the fever in their blood to cool. To realise that there is some one in accord, and all our own, who shares desire and hope, our present and our future, to whom the inmost thought might be revealed, if that were possible, without the conventional disguises in which we hide while we converse with one another, is a sensation of the rarest joy, but seldom known, and never known for long. To Joseph, who had lived alone in heart, it was very new and inexpressibly delightful. There were no words to image forth a tithe of what he felt. Speech failed. He held her hand, and breathed the pure delicious night in gasps of satisfaction: and it was all so still and simple; only the outlined rocks against the sky, and glimmering faint reflections of the stars on the dim water; no troubling details or petty objects, no motion but the ceaseless current of the universe, the noiseless unseen marching of the host of heaven from east to west. He and his love were the only two in all the mighty vault. For them the night was still, the air so sweet, the stars so kind and friendly. They and the universe were in company and at one in some mysterious way, and the peace of the universe flowed in upon his soul.