Esther came bounding towards Paul with a step as light as if she needed only the air to tread on. " Rouse you, ye dreamer," said she, playfully jogging him, — "we are late. Look up, and vow to me that I was never half so beautiful before." „ O, that I can vow to you from day to day ; for you grow in beauty on me, as you grow closer and closer to my heart." „ What an angelic creature I shall seem to you at fifty then ! How lucky that you had me ; for who else would praise my beauty when turned of two score ?" „ Be not too sure, Esther; my eyes maybe shut to all beauty before that time comes. Then you may find others to praise it in you— if you will believe them." „ Not of death now, Paul, not of death now.— Come, let us be going. We've lived here in this stillness so long, that the sound of pipe and tabour will stir my blood like a new come Greenland summer." „ 'Tis at a full and quick beat now, if I feel it right," said he, holding her by the wrist, „a little faster might do you harm." „ Beat it slow or fast, Paul, there's not a drop of it passes through the heart that is not warm to me with a love for you.— Think you I profess too much ?" „ No, not too much." " Why then look you so sad upon it ?" "To remember that I cannot always think so." „ And why not always ? Do you hold me of so unstable a nature ?" „ Ask me not what I cannot answer you. It is not myself," cried he, starting from her.— " They haunt me. I cannot 'scape them.— Away, away, I´m not your prey yet!" — He walked the room violently , his clasped hands pressing down upon his head as if his brain would burst with its working. His eyes were set, and his teeth ground against each other. He stopped, and his frame loosened from its tenseness.— " It's over," said he, spreading his arms wide, as if just set free. Esther shook with fear as she stood fixed, gazing at him. When the change came on him, she went to him. — " Paul, my own husband," said she, taking his hand, " come to me, tell me what terrible thoughts they are that tear you so." " Thoughts, call you them ? Visions, shadows, horrible, horrible shadows ! Speak not of them ; call them not round me again.— O, Esther, I am sore afflicted ; — I would that I might not suffer so. Pray for my soul's peace, Esther. It longs, it longs to rest quietly in its love for you.— Put your arms round me. There, I'm tranquil now." " If they would keep you so, I would shelter you day and night, Paul, and look and think on nothing but you." " Even here I'm not safe ; there's no place of refuge for the hunted soul." " Above, there is, Paul, if we but reach up- ward." " I've striven in agony to reach it ; but when they will, these horrors, that have no name, pluck me down. But, come, they've left me now; and the bosom's free again."— He held her at his arm's length, and stood gazing on her. — " And could dark, terrible thoughts shake me so, before all this light and beauty ! Why, Esther, I feel by you, like a cast out angel by the side of one who had stood faithful. — I've held you too long. Your father waits for you ;— away, and forget my madness." " Not without you, Paul." "What, I! No, in faith! A married pair go regularly coupled at the hour set ! No, no, I'm not such a rustic as you take me for." " Do not so suddenly trifle in this way, Paul ; it grieves me more than all ; it is not your dis- position." „ In earnest, then, the blood heaves too heavy through me yet ; when it flows more quietly, I´ll come to you." He pressed her hand gently as he put her into the carriage, and gave her one of those smiles which always went like sunshine to Esther's heart. — He saw her look back after him as the carriage turned down the road, and stretched his arms out towards her as if to clasp her to him. As he raised his hands upward, — " O, heaven," he said, " thou hast given her to me as more than an earthly blessing, let it not prove a curse upon my soul!" — He felt something clasp his knees, and looking down, he sprang as from the coil of a serpent — " Were you sent to snare me now, you imp of Hell ? How crawled you here, and for what ?" " I watched for you under this thorn," whined out poor Abel, " for I shall die if I cannot see you and speak to you. And when you prayed, I came up to you, that you would pray for me, that I might be spared going, if 'twere only for this one night." " I've sins and tortures of my own enough. Pray for yourself, poor wretch." " I dare not, I dare not," cried Abel, " lest He come and torment me. O, help me. You were good to me once." "And what mortal might can shield you against unearthly powers ?" " I feel safer when near you, though you make me tremble. Not a soul beside will so much as hear me when I call after them. I've thought, that, perhaps, nobody but you could hear me any more.“ " And why I ?— Don't put your lean hand on me." Abel shrunk back. The loathing that Paul felt turned to pity. " Come, you are hungry, and must have something to strengthen you." Paul took the boy into the house ; and having seen him fed, gave him an old rug to lie upon. " Sleep there, Abel, you shall not to the wood to-night." Abel felt comforted and protected for the first time since the thought of the wood entered his head. In a few minutes he was in a sound sleep. Paul took his way along the greensward to the village. As he passed the bush under which Abel had been sitting, he involuntarily moved a little aside from it. — " Why has that boy fasten- ed so on me ? I like it not. There'll no good come of it. When he is near me, I feel him as one cursed, and bringing a curse. The powers of darkness put him between me and mine ; and promptings of dreadful portent are whispered in my ear." His mind grew more disturbed as he went forward, ruminating on these things ; till having nearly reached the end of his walk, he stopped under a large tree, that he might gain suffi- cient composure and a clear brow to enter the room. Not a leaf moved, and the stars shone in silence. Suddenly the music burst forth from the hall;— To Paul it was like a crash that jarred the still universe. " 'Tis hateful to me ;— noise, and folly, and hot, hot blood. Warm hands, and flushed cheeks, and high beating hearts. And where is she, who an hour ago would have sheltered Paul, and looked and thought on nothing but him ? No more to her now than if he had never been— or had slept a twelvemonth in his grave. These creatures are beautiful and fair, and would be innocent as flowers, did none but heaven's winds visit them ; but the world's breath blows on them, and taints them. Beings all of sensations ; and so love's grateful to them. But it roots not deep and si- lently as in man ; from whom to pluck it out, tears up heart and all— Leave me, leave me, let me not think on't I" He rushed forward, as if to fly from the thought.
