overshadowed the graves around: and just at that moment the organ, (a
gift from a rich rector, and the boast of the neighbouring country,)
stole upon the silence with its swelling and solemn note. There was
something in the strain of this sudden music that was so kindred with the
holy repose of the scene, and which chimed so exactly to the chord that
now vibrated in Aram's mind, that it struck upon him at once with an
irresistible power. He paused abruptly "as if an angel spoke!" that sound
so peculiarly adapted to express sacred and unearthly emotion none who
have ever mourned or sinned can hear, at an unlooked for moment, without
a certain sentiment, that either subdues, or elevates, or awes. But he,--
he was a boy once more!--he was again in the village church of his native
place: his father, with his silver hair, stood again beside him! there
was his mother, pointing to him the holy verse; there the half arch, half
reverent face of his little sister, (she died young!)--there the upward
eye and hushed countenance of the preacher who had first raised his mind
to knowledge, and supplied its food,--all, all lived, moved, breathed,
again before him,--all, as when he was young and guiltless, and at peace;
hope and the future one word!

He bowed his head lower and lower; the hardness and hypocrisies of pride,
the sense of danger and of horror, that, in agitating, still supported,
the mind of this resolute and scheming man, at once forsook him. Madeline
felt his tears drop fast and burning on her hand, and the next moment,
overcome by the relief it afforded to a heart preyed upon by fiery and
dread secrets, which it could not reveal, and a frame exhausted by the
long and extreme tension of all its powers, he laid his head upon that
faithful bosom, and wept aloud.