golden web which had been woven around me shrank beneath the iron hand
of necessity, and fell in fragments at my feet. I knew that it was
useless to speak to Blanch of marriage, for her father, a stern and
exacting man in his domestic relations, had often declared that he
would never give his daughter to a husband who had no fortune. If I
sought his permission to address her now, my fate was fixed. There was
no alternative, therefore, but to wait until my return, when I hoped to
have secured, in sufficient measure, the material passport to his
favor. Our parting was necessarily sudden, and, strange as it may seem,
some fatal repression sealed my lips, and withheld me from uttering the
few words which would have made the future wholly ours, and sculptured
my dream of love in monumental permanance. Ah! with what narrow and
trembling planks do we bridge the abyss of misery and despair! But be
patient while I linger for a moment here. The evening before my
departure, I went to take leave of her. There were other guests in the
drawing-room, the atmosphere was heated and oppressive, and after a
little time I proposed to her to retreat with me, for a few moments, to
the fragrant coolness of the garden. We walked slowly along through
clustering flowers and under arching orange-trees, which infolded us
tenderly within their shining arms, as in tremulous silence we waited
for words that should say enough and yet not too much. The glories of
all summer evenings seemed concentred in this one. The moon now
silvered leaf and blossom, and then suddenly fled behind a shadowing
cloud, while the stars shone out with gladness brief and bright as the
promises of my heart. Skilful artists in the music-room thrilled the
air with some of those exquisite compositions of Mendelssohn which
dissolve the soul in sweetness or ravish it with delight, until it
seems as if all past emotions of joy were melted in one rapid and
comprehensive reexperience, and all future inheritance gleamed in
promise before our enraptured vision, and we are hurried on with