eyes, he had some legend of human wrong or suffering, so miserably
sad, that his auditors could never afterwards connect the idea of joy
with the place where it had happened. Here, a heart-broken woman,
kneeling to her child, had been spurned from his feet; here, a
desolate old creature had prayed to the Evil One, and had received a
fiendish malignity of soul, in answer to her prayer; here, a new-born
infant, sweet blossom of life, had been found dead, with the impress
of its mother's fingers round its throat; and here, under a shattered
oak, two lovers had been stricken by lightning, and fell blackened
corpses in each other's arms. The dreary Gascoigne had a gift to know
whatever evil and lamentable thing had stained the bosom of Mother
Earth; and when his funereal voice had told the tale, it appeared like
a prophecy of future woe, as well as a tradition of the past. And
now, by their sad demeanor, you would have fancied that the pilgrim
lovers were seeking, not a temple of earthly joy, but a tomb for
themselves and their posterity.

"Where in this world," exclaimed Adam Forrester, despondingly, "shall
we build our Temple of Happiness?"

"Where in this world, indeed!" repeated Lilias Fay; and being faint
and weary, the more so by the heaviness of her heart, the Lily drooped
her head and sat down on the summit of a knoll, repeating, "Where in
this world shall we build our Temple?"

"Ah! have you already asked yourselves that question?" said their
companion, his shaded features growing even gloomier with the smile
that dwelt on them; "yet there is a place, even in this world, where
ye may build it."