perchance only a few weeks had only to pass by, and their souls were to
be pressed so closely together by the legal stamp of matrimony that
nothing but the chisel of death could be able to separate them.

What a delightful picture of future life is often sketched by the
artistic fancy of the soul. What beautiful delineations of all that is
exquisitely pleasing and profitable! The scenes are of the grandest
descriptions: the coloring, of the richest hues, admirably shaded and
intermingled. Even the darkest spots are glistening by the surrounding
beauty. All appears as an enchanted dream; a glimpse of fairyland, or as
a primeval paradise modernized, and rendered suitable in every part to
gratify the desires of the mind.

But, alas! too frequently these prospects of ideality are built only
upon corner pillars, and tower to so great an altitude above their
slender bases, that their summits, like the top of Babel become
mystified by the clouds; and when the first storm of adversity, or the
breath of insidious circumstances are blown against them, they totter,
and eventually fall crashing to the earth, and lie scattered in
shapeless ruins around their basis.

But, perhaps, it is cruel to predict, or even to suggest, such ruinous
consequences to the moonlit dreams of that happy pair. Time alone can
unfold the mysterious realities of life. I will, therefore, pursue the
windings of their course, and note down the various incidents and events
as they are struck out, like the sparks from the heated iron under the
blacksmith's hammer.