enough to know; nor would it be worth while to correct myself,
perhaps, of an agreeable error, by reading the date of its
erection on the tablet over the door. It is a stately church,
surrounded by an inclosure of the loveliest green, within which
appear urns, pillars, obelisks, and other forms of monumental
marble, the tributes of private affection, or more splendid
memorials of historic dust. With such a place, though the tumult
of the city rolls beneath its tower, one would be willing to
connect some legendary interest.

The marriage might be considered as the result of an early
engagement, though there had been two intermediate weddings on
the lady's part, and forty years of celibacy on that of the
gentleman. At sixty-five, Mr. Ellenwood was a shy, but not quite
a secluded man; selfish, like all men who brood over their own
hearts, yet manifesting on rare occasions a vein of generous
sentiment; a scholar throughout life, though always an indolent
one, because his studies had no definite object, either of public
advantage or personal ambition; a gentleman, high bred and
fastidiously delicate, yet sometimes requiring a considerable
relaxation, in his behalf, of the common rules of society. In
truth, there were so many anomalies in his character, and though
shrinking with diseased sensibility from public notice, it had
been his fatality so often to become the topic of the day, by
some wild eccentricity of conduct, that people searched his
lineage for an hereditary taint of insanity. But there was no
need of this. His caprices had their origin in a mind that lacked
the support of an engrossing purpose, and in feelings that preyed
upon themselves for want of other food. If he were mad, it was
the consequence, and not the cause, of an aimless and abortive