Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn; while, in his flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
He sang of chaos, and eternal night:--

As when, revisiting the "Holy Light, offspring of heaven first-born," the
sense of freshness and glory breaks upon him, and kindles into the solemn
joyfulness of adjuring song: so rises the mind from the contemplation of
the gloom and guilt of life, "the utter and the middle darkness," to some
pure and bright redemption of our nature--some creature of "the starry
threshold," "the regions mild of calm and serene air." Never was a nature
more beautiful and soft than that of Madeline Lester--never a nature more
inclined to live "above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, which men
call earth"--to commune with its own high and chaste creations of
thought--to make a world out of the emotions which this world knows not--
a paradise, which sin, and suspicion, and fear, had never yet invaded--
where God might recognise no evil, and Angels forebode no change.

Aram's return was now daily, nay, even hourly expected. Nothing disturbed
the soft, though thoughtful serenity, with which his betrothed relied
upon the future. Aram's letters had been more deeply impressed with the
evidence of love, than even his spoken vows: those letters had diffused
not so much an agitated joy, as a full and mellow light of happiness over
her heart. Every thing, even Nature, seemed inclined to smile with
approbation on her hopes. The autumn had never, in the memory of man,
worn so lovely a garment: the balmy and freshening warmth, which
sometimes characterises that period of the year, was not broken, as yet,
by the chilling winds, or the sullen mists, which speak to us so
mournfully of the change that is creeping over the beautiful world. The