is bright before them, when the soil which they tread on is covered
with flowers, and the only murmurs which they hear are the murmurs
of soft breezes, and the only sighs are sighs of passion; not less
beautiful is it to see the young linked together in love, struggling
with adversity; to see two beings whose sole object in life it is
to alleviate the daily toil of each other; to whom every effort of
self-denial through the object of its exercise becomes a blessing; to
whom the future is full of promise, because exertion gives confidence,
and self-confidence is the source of all hope. There is something
very touching in the sight of those whom the world deserts, or to
whose interests the world is at best indifferent, arousing all
their energies to battle with adverse circumstances. Then every
little addition to the daily comforts is prized, as the result of
independence and of honorable exertion--in a word, as the reward of
labor: every holiday arrives fraught not merely with enjoyment, but
with blessing. To such there are sources of happiness, which the gay,
the wealthy, the children of life's sun know nothing of, but which in
their noonday career of splendor and greatness they might well stop to
envy.

On such an existence Marguerite had entered. Hers was a simple
history, told in few words, but connected with long previous chapters
of passions and regrets; for she was the child of love, begotten
in tears, and brought up in one of those admirable foundling
establishments which prevail in Germany, and are at once the
incentives to love and the protection of its offspring. She left it a
year previously to the period when we are writing, to enter a family
of distinction as a humble friend and teacher. There Dumiger chanced
to meet her. When first he met he loved; and like all men of earnest
purpose, he loved with no common passion. The family were of that kind