The evening, considering the lateness of the season, for winter had set in, was mild and pleasant. The moon at full was rising over the Cumnock hills, and casting its faint light on the trees that rose around us, in their winding-sheets of brown and yellow, like so many spectres, or that, in the more exposed glares and openings of the wood, stretched their long naked arms to the sky. A light breeze went rustling through the withered grass; and I could see the faint twinkling of the falling leaves, as they came showering down on every side of us. "We meet in the midst of death and desolation," said my companion--"we parted when all around us was fresh and beautiful. My father was with me then, and--and Mary Campbell--and now"---- "Mary! your Mary!" I exclaimed--"the young--the beautiful--alas! is she also gone?" "She has left me," he said--"left me. Mary is in her grave!" I felt my heart swell, as the image of that loveliest of creatures came rising to my view in all her beauty, as I had seen her by the river side; and I knew not what to reply. "Yes," continued my friend, "she's in her grave;--we parted for a few days, to re-unite, as we hoped, for ever; and, ere these few days had passed, she was in her grave. But I was unworthy of her--unworthy even then; and now---- But she is in her grave!" I grasped his hand. "It is difficult," I said, "to _bid_ the heart submit to these dispensations, and, oh, how utterly impossible to bring it to _listen_! But life--_your_ life, my friend--must not be passed in useless sorrow. I am convinced, and often have I thought of it since our last meeting, that yours is no vulgar destiny--though I know not to what it tends." "Downwards!" he exclaimed--"it tends downwards;--I see, I feel it;--the anchor of my affection is gone, and I drift shoreward on the rocks." "'Twere ruin," I exclaimed, "to think so!"