not from virtues of my own, but from all that I owe to thee! The
grateful have the power to bless. For what do I not owe to thee--owe
to that very love of which even the grief is sacred? Poor child in
the house of the heathen, thy love descended upon me, and in it, the
smile of God! In that love my spirit awoke, and was baptised: every
thought that has risen from earth, and lost itself in heaven, was
breathed into my heart by thee! Thy creature and thy slave, hadst
thou tempted me to sin, sin had seemed hallowed by thy voice; but thou
saidst 'True love is virtue,' and so I worshipped virtue in loving
thee. Strengthened, purified, by thy bright companionship, from thee
came the strength to resign thee--from thee the refuge under the wings
of God--from thee the firm assurance that our union yet shall be--not
as our poor Hilda dreams, on the perishable earth,--but there! oh,
there! yonder by the celestial altars, in the land in which all
spirits are filled with love. Yes, soul of Harold! there are might
and holiness in the blessing the soul thou hast redeemed and reared
sheds on thee!"

And so beautiful, so unlike the Beautiful of the common earth, looked
the maid as she thus spoke, and laid hands, trembling with no human
passion, on that royal head-that could a soul from paradise be made
visible, such might be the shape it would wear to a mortal's eye!
Thus, for some moments both were silent; and in the silence the gloom
vanished from the heart of Harold, and, through a deep and sublime
serenity, it rose undaunted to front the future.

No embrace--no farewell kiss--profaned the parting of those pure and
noble spirits--parting on the threshold of the grave. It was only the
spirit that clasped the spirit, looking forth from the clay into
measureless eternity. Not till the air of night came once more on his