“I couldn’t be otherwise than faithful to you,” she replied, “without being unhappy myself; an’ I trust it’s no sin to love each other as we do.  Now let us——­God bless me, what a flash! and here’s the rain beginning.  That thunder’s dreadful; Heaven preserve us!  It’s an awful night!  Connor, you must see me as far as the corner of the garden; as for you, I wish you were safe at home.”

“Hasten, dear,” said he, “hasten; it’s no night for you to be out in, now that the rain’s coming.  As for me, if it was ten times as dreadful I won’t feel it.  There’s but one thought—­one thought in my mind, and that I wouldn’t part with for the wealth of the universe.”

Both then proceeded at a quick puce until they reached the corner of Bodagh’s garden, where, with brief but earnest reassurances of unalterable attachment, they took a tender and affectionate farewell.

It is not often that the higher ranks can appreciate the moral beauty of love as it is experienced by those humbler classes to whom they deny the power of feeling in its most refined and exalted character.  For our parts we differ so much from them in this, that, if we wanted to give an illustration of that passion in its purest and most delicate state, we would not seek for it in the saloon or the drawing—­room, but among the green fields and the smiling landscapes of rural life.  The simplicity of humble hearts is more accordant with the unity of affection than any mind can be that is distracted by the competition of rival claims upon its gratification.  We do not say that the votaries of rank and fashion are insensible to love; because, how much soever they may be conversant with the artificial and unreal, still they are human, and must, to a certain extent, be influenced by a principle that acts wherever it can find a heart on which to operate.  We say, however, that their love, when contrasted with that which is felt by the humble peasantry, is languid and sickly; neither so pure, nor so simple, nor so intense.  Its associations in high life are unfavorable to the growth of a healthy passion; for what is the glare of a lamp, a twirl through the insipid maze of the ball-room, or the unnatural distortions of the theatre, when compared to the rising of the summer sun, the singing of birds, the music of the streams, the joyous aspect of the varied landscape, the mountain, the valley, the lake, and a thousand other objects, each of which transmits to the peasant’s heart silently and imperceptibly that subtle power which at once strengthens and purifies the passion?  There is scarcely such a thing as solitude in the upper ranks, nor an opportunity of keeping the feelings unwasted, and the energies of the heart unspent by the many vanities and petty pleasures with which fashion forces a compliance, until the mind falls from its natural dignity, into a habit of coldness and aversion to everything but the circle of empty trifles in which it moves so giddily.  But the enamored youth who can retire