-why else should I sit now, while the creeping hours glorify twilight into day, in their lucid transfiguration-resolved and fortified that the irrevocable die shall be thrown, on whose cast all that now seems to make life life, suspends itself? What other force is it than that overruling Power that shakes the rein and brandishes the scourge, and urges on the light car of life to a goal unseen as its starting-place?

But, oh! may what seems Chance be but the obedient child of loving Forethought! Minemine "nothing but mine-still more;" and yet, if so, were it not enough?

"I am giddy; expectation whirls me round.
The imaginary relish is so sweet

That it enchants my sense! What will it be
When that the wat'ry palate tastes indeed
Love's thrice-reputed nectar? Death, I fear me,
Swooning destruction: or some joy too fine,—
Too subtle-potent-tuned too sharp in sweetness
For the capacity of my ruder powers.

O Love! be moderate!--allay thy ecstasy,-
In measure rain thy joy-scant this excess;
I feel too much thy blessing, make it less!"

Ah! but a few words more-the last-the last I shall write before fulfilment. But a few moments more, and then, to make ready for the decision! The rosy lines of morning, that smiled on me but now, as so often her lips have smiled in reward or encou ragement-the blushes of anticipation-they have fled before the fulfilment of the day's golden pro

mise, to rouse and to warn me, that my auguries are written in the heavens. Already the light stir of life-I hear it-has awakened in the house: I hear the voices of the children, the tread of eager feet, the accents and cries of exultation. They knock at her door-they call her, they awaken her. I know it-she looks forth in her beauty. Lady-lady, my all-too-precious Preciosa! oh, "if you are mine, I am yours: I give away myself for you, and dote upon the exchange!"

CHAPTER II.

THE clock had struck eleven; and with that professional punctuality which distinguished the old Admiral's household, the carriages came round to the hall-door to convey Emily and her bridegroom to church. A fitful murmur of expectation filled the house. The doors were open, and the villagechildren, dressed in white, ran in and out with their flower-bunches, strewing the floor with loosened petals, as if impressed alone with the importunate and paramount necessity of perpetually shifting their positions. Servants came lightly down stairs, and traversed the passages with a half-important, half-comic air, carrying baskets of fruit and hothouse flowers, portions of ladies' dresses, or wellfilled trunks and boxes, to be ranged on either side the hall, in readiness for the afternoon's depar

ture.

From a rustling mass of silk and ribbon, one of the maids carelessly let fall a lace veil, and went upwards without perceiving the loss. Edward, who was standing at the staircase-foot, looking seriously round him, took it, and with a smile, delicately examined the fine texture. He did not perceive the

impatient eye with which his companion watched him, till, roused at last by a nervous and unsuccessful effort to snatch the veil from his hands, he looked up and said

"Once for all, Arthur, on this last all-important day, accept my heartiest congratulations. You are aware how long I have known Emily and her family; and all my knowledge only makes me feel how much happiness is in store for you."

Arthur seemed pleased, and shook Edward's hand, murmuring something which ended with a "But still I do not wish her to go to the church without her veil."

"Is it hers? Indeed, I beg pardon, Arthur. But she is so pretty, that I have not the heart to wish her strictly concealed at the last minute."

At this moment a servant ran hastily down stairs, and calling out, as she leaned over the banister, "Miss Lucy's veil, if you please," took it up from Edward's hands, and vanished with it again in an instant. Arthur laughed; and, to disperse a sort of embarrassment which might seem to gather, so he thought, on the countenance of his best-man, said, that he thought no "disposition" so happy as when a bride was led up to the altar by her sisters. "They seem to me always, especially when she happens to be the eldest of the squadron, by far her most natural and pleasing companions and allies on such an occasion. Your ordinary bridesmaid the school friend or second cousin, perhaps, has not a sufficiently engrossing interest