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These two humble and happy persons were betrothed in marriage. Their affection had insensibly grown without any courtship, for they had lived daily in each others sight; and, undisturbed by jealously or rivalry, by agitating hopes or depressing fears, their hearts hsd been tenderly united long before their troth was solemnly pledged, and they now looked forward with a calm and rational satisfaction to the happy years, which they humbly hoped might be stored up for them by a bountiful Providence. Their love was without romance, but it was warm, tender and true; they were prepared by its strength to make any sacrifice for each other's sakes; and, had death taken away either of them before the wedding day, the survivor might not perhaps have been clamorous in grief, or visited the grave of the departed with nightly lamentations, but not the less would that grief have been sincere, and not the less faithful would memory have been to all the images of the past.
Their marriage-day was fixed--and Allan Bruce had rented a small cottage, with a garden sloping down to the stream that cheered his native village. Thither, in about two months, he was to take his sweet and affectionate Fanny———she was to work with her needle as before———and he in the fields. No change was to take place in their lives, but a change of contentment to happiness; and if God prolonged to them the possession of health, and
