“‘Oh, how delicious!’ she cried.  ’How it seems to set the spirit free, and we wander off on the wings of Fancy to other spheres!’

“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘it is very beautiful, but sad, when one is alone.’

“I was thinking of Eunice.

“‘How inadequate,’ she continued, ’is language to express the emotions which Such a scene calls up in the bosom!  Poetry alone is the voice of the spiritual world, and we, who are not poets, must borrow the language of the gifted sons of Song.  Oh, Enos, I wish you were a poet!  But you feel poetry, I know you do.  I have seen it in your eyes, when I quoted the burning lines of Adeliza Kelley, or the soul-breathings of Gamaliel J. Gawthrop.  In him, particularly, I find the voice of my own nature.  Do you know his “Night-Whispers”?  How it embodies the feelings of such a scene as this!

  “Star-drooping bowers bending down the
    spaces,
   And moonlit glories sweep star-footed on;
   And pale, sweet rivers, in their shining
    races,
   Are ever gliding through the moonlit places,
   With silver ripples on their tranced faces,
  And forests clasp their dusky hands, with low
    and sullen moan!”

“‘Ah!’ she continued, as I made no reply, ’this is an hour for the soul to unveil its most secret chambers!  Do you not think, Enos, that love rises superior to all conventionalities? that those whose souls are in unison should be allowed to reveal themselves to each other, regardless of the world’s opinions?’

“‘Yes!’ said I, earnestly.

“‘Enos, do you understand me?’ she asked, in a tender voice,—­almost a whisper.

“‘Yes,’ said I, with a blushing confidence of my own passion.

“‘Then,’ she whispered, ’our hearts are wholly in unison.  I know you are true, Enos.  I know your noble nature, and I will never doubt you.  This is indeed happiness!’

“And therewith she laid her head on my shoulder, and sighed,—­

  “’Life remits his tortures cruel,
  Love illumes his fairest fuel,
  When the hearts that once were dual
  Meet as one, in sweet renewal!’

“‘Miss Ringtop!’ I cried, starting away from her, in alarm, ’you don’t mean that—­that’——­

“I could not finish the sentence.

“‘Yes, Enos, dear Enos! henceforth we belong to each other.’

“The painful embarrassment I felt, as her true meaning shot through my mind, surpassed anything I had imagined, or experienced in anticipation, when planning how I should declare myself to Eunice.  Miss Ringtop was at least ten years older than I, far from handsome, (but you remember her face,) and so affectedly sentimental, that I, sentimental as I was then, was sick of hearing her talk.  Her hallucination was so monstrous, and gave me such a shock of desperate alarm, that I spoke, on the impulse of the moment, with great energy, without regarding how her feelings might be wounded.