He had promised to call again at her father’s on the day after the accident; and with an ardent kindliness, Mr. Sim had welcomed him to do so.  But he went forth, he wandered by the side of the lake, he approached within sight of the house, there was a contention of strange feelings in his breast, and he returned without paying his promised visit.  Nevertheless, thoughts of Maria haunted him, and her image mingled with all his fancies.  She became as a spirit in his memory that he could not expel, and that he would not if he could.

Three weeks passed on—­it was evening—­the sun was sinking behind the mountains, and Lieutenant Morris was wandering through a wooded vale, towards Mr. Sim’s mansion; for though he entered it not, he nightly drew towards it, as if instinctively, wandering around it, and gazing on its windows as he did so, marvelling as he gazed.  He was absorbed in one of those dreamy reveries in which men saunter, speak, and muse unconsciously, when, in following the windings of a footpath which led through a thicket, he suddenly found himself in the presence of a young lady, who was walking slowly across the wood with a book in her hand.  Their eyes met—­they startled—­the book dropped by her side—­it was Maria.

I must not, however, dwell longer on this part of the subject; for the story of the twin brothers is yet to begin.  Let it be sufficient to say that William, or, as I have hitherto called him, Lieutenant Morris, and Maria whom he saved, became attached to each other.  Their dispositions were similar; they seemed formed for each other.  Affection took deep root in their hearts; and to root up that affection in the breast of either, was to destroy the heart itself.  He made known his attachment towards Maria to his father; and galled pride and hatred to those who had injured him being stronger in the breast of the old squire than the small still voice of affection, he spurned his son from him, and ordered him to leave his house for ever.

The parents of Maria, notwithstanding their first feelings of gratitude towards the saviour of their daughter, were equally averse to a union between them; but with Maria the impulse of the heart and the lover’s passionate prayer prevailed over her parents’ frowns.  They were wed, they became all to each other, and were disowned by those who gave them birth.

When Lieutenant Morris left India, he obtained permission to remain in England for three years; and it was about twelve months after his arrival that the marriage between him and Maria took place.  He had still two years to spend in his native land, and he hired a secluded and neat cottage on the banks of the Annan for that period, for the residence of himself and his young and beautiful wife.

Twelve months after their marriage, Maria became the mother of twins—­the twin brothers of our tale.  But three months had not passed, nor had her infants raised their first smile towards their mother’s face, when the sterile hand of death touched the bosom that supplied them with life.  The young husband wept by the bed of death, with the hand of her he loved in his.