the future? But peace! peace! peace! I am, I will, I shall be, happy now! Memory, I defy thee!"
He uttered the last words in a deep and intense tone, and turning away as the joyful peal again broke distinctly on his ear,
"My marriage-bell! oh, Madeline! how wondrously beloved: how unspeakably dear thou art to me! What hast thou conquered? how many reasons for resolve; how vast an army in the Past has thy bright and tender purity overthrown! But thou, no never shalt thou repent!" and for several minutes the sole thought of the soliloquist was love. But scarce consciously to himself, a spirit not, to all seeming, befitted to that bridal-day,—vague, restless, impressed with the dark and fluttering shadow of coming change, had taken possession of his breast, and did not long yield the mastery to any brighter and more serene emotion.
"And why?" he said, as this spirit regained its empire over him, and he paused before the
