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duty to obey———but here she knew not what was her duty. To give up Allan Bruce was a thought far worse to her than to give up life. It was to suffer her heartstrings to he hourly torn up by the roots. If the two were willing to be married, why should any one else interfere? If God had stricken Allan with blindness after their marriage, would any one have counselled her to leave him? Or pitied her because she had to live with her own blind husband? Or would the fear of poverty have benumbed her feelings? Or rather would it not have given new alacrity to her hands, and new courage to her heart? So she resolved, meekly and calmly, to tell Allan that she would be his wife, and that she believed that such was, in spite of this affliction, the will of God.
Allan Bruce did not absent himself, in his blindness, from the House of God. One Sabbath, after divine service, Fanny went up to him in the church-yard, and putting her arm in his, they walked away together, seemingly as cheerful as the rest of the congregation, only with somewhat slower and more cautious steps. They proceeded along the quiet meadowfields by the banks of the stream, and then across the smooth green braes, till they gently descended into a holm, and sat down together in a little green bower, which a few hazels, mingling with one tall weeping birch, had of themselves framed, a place where they had often
