“Yes, dearest,” she murmured with a gentle pressure, that passed like wildfire to my heart.  “I fear too happy.  Earth will not suffer it”

We parted, and in twelve hours those words were not without their meaning.

We met on the following morning at the usual breakfast hour.  The moment that I entered the apartment, I perceived that Ellen was indisposed—­that something had occurred, since the preceding night, to give her anxiety or pain.  Her hand trembled slightly, and a degree of perturbation was apparent in her movements.  My first impression was, that she had received ill news, for there was nothing in her appearance to indicate the existence of bodily suffering.  It soon occurred to me, however, that the unwonted recent excitement might account for all her symptoms—­that they were, in fact, the natural consequence of that sudden abundance of joyous spirits which I had remarked in her during the early part of the evening.  I satisfied myself with this belief, or strove to do so—­the more easily, perhaps, because I saw her father indifferent to her state, if not altogether ignorant of it.  He who was ever lying in wait—­ever watching—­ever ready to apprehend the smallest evidence of ill health, was, on this morning, as insensible to the alteration which had taken place in the darling object of his solicitude, as though he had no eyes to see, or object to behold; so easy is it for a too anxious diligence in a pursuit to overshoot and miss the point at which it aims.  Could he, as we sat, have guessed the cause of all her grief—­could some dark spirit, gloating on man’s misery, have breathed one fearful word into his ear, bringing to life and light the melancholy tale of distant years—­how would his nature have supported the announcement—­how bore the?——­but let me not anticipate.  I say that I dismissed all thought of serious mischief, by attributing at once all signs of it to the undue excitement of the festive night.  As the breakfast proceeded, I believed that her anxiety diminished, and with that passed away my fears.

At the end of the pleasure garden of the parsonage was a paddock, and, immediately beyond this, another field, leading to a small valley of great beauty.  On one side of “the Dell,” as it was called, was a summer-house, which the incumbent had erected for the sake of the noble prospect which the elevation commanded.  To this retreat Ellen and I had frequently wandered with our books during the progress of our love.  Here I had read to her of affection and constancy, consecrated by the immortal poet’s song.  Here we had passed delightful hours, bestowing on the future the same golden lustre that made so bright the present.  In joy, I had called this summer-house “the Lover’s Bower,” and it was pleasing to us both to think that we should visit in our after days, for many a year, and with increasing love, a spot endeared to us by the fondest recollections.  Thither I bent my steps at the close of our repast.