“Thanks, angel of my life!” returned Markland, as soon as he had, in a measure, recovered himself.  “Even the painful lessons I have been taught would fade from my memory, but for thee!”

CHAPTER XLIV.

A FEW weeks later, and “Lawn Cottage” was the scene of an event which made the hearts of its inmates glad even to tears.  That event was the marriage of Fanny.  From the time of her betrothment to Mr. Willet, a new life seemed born in her spirit and a new beauty stamped upon her countenance.  All around her was diffused the heart’s warm sunshine.  As if from a long, bewildering, painful dream, she had awakened to find the morning breaking in serene beauty, and loving arms gathered protectingly around her.  The desolating tempest had swept by; and so brilliant was the sunshine, and so clear the bending azure, that night and storms were both forgotten.

Old Mr. Allison was one of the few guests, outside of the families, who were present at the nuptial ceremonies.  The bride—­in years, if not in heart-experience, yet too young to enter upon the high duties to which she had solemnly pledged herself—­looked the embodied image of purity and loveliness.

“Let me congratulate you,” said the old man, sitting down beside Mr. Markland, and grasping his hand, after the beautiful and impressive ceremony was over and the husband’s lips had touched the lips of his bride and wife.  “And mine is no ordinary congratulation, that goes scarcely deeper than words, for I see in this marriage the beginning of a true marriage; and in these external bonds, the image of those truer spiritual bonds which are to unite them in eternal oneness.”

“What an escape she made!” responded the father, a shudder running through his frame, as there arose before him, at that instant, a clear recollection of the past, and of his own strange, consenting blindness.

“The danger was fearful,” replied Mr. Allison, who understood the meaning of the words which had just been uttered.  “But it is past now.”

“Yes, thanks to the infinite wisdom that leads us back into right paths.  Oh! what a life of unimagined wretchedness would have fallen to her lot, if all my plans and hopes had been accomplished!  Do you know, Mr. Allison, that I have compared my insane purposes in the past to that of those men of old who made their children pass through the fire to Moloch?  I set up an idol—­a bloody Moloch—­and was about sacrificing to it my child!”

“There is One who sits above the blinding vapours of human passion, and sees all ends from the beginning; One who loves us with an infinite tenderness, and leads us, even through struggling resistance, back to the right paths, let us stray never so often.  Happy are we, if, when the right paths are gained, we walk therein with willing feet.  Mr. Markland, your experiences have been of a most painful character; almost crushed out has been the natural life that held the soaring spirit fettered to the perishing things of this outer world; but you have felt that a new and better life has been born within you, and have tasted some of its purer pleasures.  Oh, sir! let not the life of this world extinguish a fire that is kindled for eternity.”