me, bade me reflect, take counsel, and be cautious. He gave at last no
opposition to our wishes--but requested that time might be allowed for
trial, and my settlement in life. And so it was agreed. I prosecuted my
studies more diligently than ever, and looked with impatience for the
hour when my profession (for I had gone to the university with a view to
the church) and my little income would justify me in offering to my
darling one a home. Did I now mourn over the inequality of my fortune?
Did I upbraid the dead--accuse the living? I did not, sir. Too pleased to
labour for the girl whom I had chosen--I rejoiced to owe my bread to my
exertion. She then, as now--for it was her--my Anna, sir--the wreck whom
you have seen--cruelly misused by poverty and grief--robbed of her beauty
and her strength--the miserable outline of her former self--she then,
even as now, was in all things actuated by the highest motives--a serious
and religious maid. She cheered me with her smiles--her perfect patience
and tranquil hope. It was to her a privilege to be united to a clergyman,
and to find her earthly joy combined with usefulness and good. In our
walks, I have painted the future which was never to be--the bliss we were
never to experience. I have spoken of the parsonage, and its little lawn
and many flowers--pictured myself at work--visiting the poor--comforting
the sick--herself my dear attendant at the cottage doors, with hosts of
little ones about her, whom she might call her children, and for whom she
might exercise more than a mother's care. She could not listen to such
promises, and not grow happier in her inexperience than reality could
ever render her; and yet sighs, sighs, ominous sighs, would from the
first escape her. Still for a twelvemonth our nook of earth was Paradise,
and sorrow, the universal lot, was banished from our door. The tales
which I had been accustomed to hear of the world's deceit and falsehood
seemed groundless and cruel--the inventions of envious disappointed
minds--whose ambition had betrayed them into hopes, too preposterous for
fulfilment Happiness was on earth--did I not find her in my daily