I shall no longer be a lonely and regretful being; my affections will no longer waste themselves upon barrenness and stone.

I go among the living and warm world of mortal energies and desires; my existence shall glide alternately through crested cities, and bowers in which Poetry worships Love; and the clear depths of my heart shall reflect whatever its young dreams have shadowed forth, the visioned form, the gentle and fairy spirit, the Eve of my soul's imagined and foreboded paradise." Venting, in this incoherent strain, the exultation which filled my thoughts, I wandered on, throughout the whole day, till my spirits had exhausted themselves by indulgence; and, wearied alike by mental excitement and bodily exertion, I turned, with slow steps, towards the house.

As I ascended the gentle acclivity on which it stood, I saw a figure approaching towards me: the increasing shades of the evening did not allow me to recognize the shape until it was almost by my side; it was Aubrey.
Of late I had seen very little of him.

His devotional studies and habits seemed to draw him from the idle pursuits of myself and my uncle's guests; and Aubrey was one peculiarly susceptible of neglect, and sore, to morbidity, at the semblance of unkindness; so that he required to be sought, and rarely troubled others with advances: that night, however, his greeting was unusually warm.
"I was uneasy about you, Morton," said he, drawing my arm in his; "you have not been seen since morning; and, oh! Morton, my uncle told me, with tears in his eyes, that you were going to leave us.

Is it so ?" "Had he tears in his eyes?
Kind old man! And you, Aubrey, shall you, too, grieve for my departure ?" "Can you ask it, Morton?
But why will you leave us?
Are we not all happy here, now?
_Now_ that there is no longer any barrier or difference between us,--_now_ that I may look upon you, and listen to you, and love you, and _own_ that I love you?
Why will you leave us now?
And [continued Aubrey, as if fearful of giving me time to answer]--and every one praises you so here; and my uncle and all of us are so proud of you.
Why should you desert our affections merely because they are not new?
Why plunge into that hollow and cold world which all who have tried it picture in such fearful hues?
Can you find anything there to repay you for the love you leave behind ?" "My brother," said I, mournfully, and in a tone which startled him,--it was so different from that which I usually assumed,--"my brother, hear before you reproach me.