How that summer sped by on its golden wings! Time passed on, as in some
delicious opium dream! And when the short clays and long nights of the
Christmas holidays set in, I found myself secretly engaged in marriage to
Richard Bristed.

Of our plans and attachment his brother was not at present to be
informed: this stern brother who shut himself up apart from his species,
and who, Richard told me, was of too cold a nature to sympathize with
love.

"He will dismiss you, Agnes, if he hears of it," he said. "Wait till I
have settled up my affairs, and then he can do his worst."

I believed this statement; I forgot all my former good impressions of Mr.
Bristed, and listened to the tales that were told me of how he had
wronged Richard. I learned to regard him as a robber, a hypocrite whose
statements could not be relied on; a false, dark, bad man. As for
Richard, he seemed a king in comparison; a noble, magnanimous being, whom
some kind fairy had bestowed upon me.

But that cold, relentless Fate, which comes to tear off the painted
wrappings of life, revealing the bare and ugly reality beneath, was fast
pursuing me.

At the close of a cold, snowy day, I had retired early to my room, and
having locked the door that I might be free from interruption, sat down
to look over the dainty articles of dress which I had been shyly
accumulating for my approaching marriage.

It was but a scanty outfit, but to me it appeared munificent as that of a