I will vouch for him as a man of high and honourable principles." Mr.
Markland spoke with some warmth of manner.
"Oh, Edward! Edward!" exclaimed his wife, in a distressed voice.
"What has so blinded you to the real quality of this man?
'By their fruit ye shall know them.' And is not the first fruit, we have plucked from this tree, bitter to the taste ?" "You are excited and bewildered in thought, Agnes," said Mr.
Markland, in a soothing voice.

"Let us waive this subject for the present, until both of us can refer to it with a more even heart-beat." Mrs.Markland caught her breath, as if the air had suddenly grown stifling.
"Will they ever beat more evenly ?" she murmured, in a sad voice.
"Why, Agnes! Into what a strange mood you have fallen! You are not like yourself." "And I am not, to my own consciousness.

For weeks it has seemed to me as if I were in a troubled dream." "The glad waking will soon come, I trust," said Mr.Markland, with forced cheerfulness of manner.
"I pray that it may be so," was answered, in a solemn voice.
There was silence for some moments, and then the other's full heart overflowed.

Mr.Markland soothed her, with tender, hopeful words, calling her fears idle, and seeking, by many forms of speech, to scatter the doubts and fears which, like thick clouds, had encompassed her spirit..