"The history of your life," she continued, "is the history of mine,
with the change of a few particulars. Only yours commences, and mine--"
I would not let her conclude. "No, no!" said I hoarsely pressing my
lips to her feet, which I embraced convulsively as if to hold her down
to earth; "no, no! you will not, must not die; or, if you do, I feel
two lives will end at once!"

I was alarmed at my own gesture and at the exclamation which had
involuntarily escaped me; and I durst not raise my face off the ground,
from which she had withdrawn her feet. "Rise," she said, in a grave
voice, but without anger; "do not worship dust--dust as lowly as that
in which you are soiling your fine hair, and which will be scattered as
light and as impalpable by the first autumnal wind. Do not deceive
yourself as to the poor creature you see before you. I am but the
shadow of youth, of beauty, and of love,--of the love you will one day
feel and inspire, when this shadow shall long have passed away. Keep
your heart for those who are to live, and only give to the dying what
the dying ask, a gentle hand to support their last steps, and tears to
mourn their loss."

The grave and serious tone-with which she said these words struck to my
heart. Yet as I looked on her, and saw the glowing tints of the setting
sun illumining her face, which shone with hourly increasing youth and
serenity of expression, as though a new sun had risen in her heart, I
could not believe in death concealed under these glorious signs of
life. Besides, what cared I? If that heavenly vision was death, well,
it was death I loved. It might be that the vast and perfect love for
which I thirsted was only to be found in death. It might be that God
had only showed me its nearly extinguished light on earth, to urge me
to follow the trace of its ray into the grave, and from thence to