"Dear Agnes," he began, "can one with so kind a heart look with indifference on the wants and the sufferings of a father and a mother? It is in your power to make them happy, to restore them to prosperity. For two years I have sought your hand, without meeting one look of encouragement or one word of hope. Yet believe me, Agnes, I admire the constancy which induces you to cherish a hopeless passion, and reject me. If not for my sake, yet for the sake of your poor father, for that of your fond mother, yea, for your own sake, dearest, permit me to call you mine. I do not ask your love now; give me but your esteem, and I will study to deserve your affection. Dear friends, plead for me," he added, addressing her parents. Her father laid his hand upon hers--"Dear Agnes," said he, "your father is now a poor man--he is very poor. I fear the hand of death is already upon me; and when I am gone, who will provide for your poor mother--who will protect thee, my child? It is the only wish of my heart to see you provided for, and your father would die in peace. And oh, my Agnes, as your father's dying request, permit me to bestow your hand upon this generous youth." "Save us, my sweet one!" cried her mother, and she flung her arms around her daughter's neck. "It is done!" exclaimed Agnes, bursting into tears; and she stretched out her hand to Mr Walker. A few weeks afterwards, and the village bells rang a merry peal, children scattered flowers, and there was joy on every face, save upon the face of the fair bride, who went as a sacrifice to the altar. She heard not the words of the clergyman as he read the ceremony. She trembled, she would have fallen to the ground, but that the bridesmaid supported her. The marriage party were returning by a footpath from the church, the sorrowful bride resting on the arm of her bridegroom. A stranger met them--he turned aside, that they might pass. His eyes fell upon the countenance of the bride. "O Heavens! my Agnes!" cried the stranger, in a voice of agony. "Henry! my Henry!" screamed the wretched bride, and, starting from the side of the bridegroom, she sank on the breast of the stranger. That stranger was indeed Henry Cranstoun. A severe illness had brought him to the verge of death, and with his restoration to health reason was restored also. He had come to take his bride to his bosom--he met her the bride of another. It was a scene of misery. "O Agnes! Agnes!" groaned Henry, "would to Heaven I had died! You are another's, though your heart is mine! Farewell! Farewell!--we must meet no more! I have endured much, but never misery like this!"