CHAPTER V.

THE first few months of Emily's residence at Barguy passed rapidly as the rosy-winged sleep, which, in the ancient poetry of Greece, is made to represent the soft and imperceptible flight of Time. The husband was yet the lover, and as he pointed out the mingled beauties of landscape and sea scenery around them, he appeared only to wish that he could collect them into one never-fading wreath, and twine them round the temples of his youthful bride. Often when sailing over the still waters, or wandering through the woods and windings, over which frowned, as in magnificent relief, the bleak mountains of the Forth, she had smiled at her past girlish fears; or if in the storm, or unthreaded solitude, she clang to Adrian, and thought the dark ocean calm, and the wild steep accessible, because of his presence and

love, she believed there never should be future time in which that presence would be gone like a shadow, and that love cold as the solitude.

And where he wished

When they entered into society, he would draw out and lay before Emily those softer and deeper graces which so often lie hidden in a woman's bosom, and waste their sweetness round a desert heart, to find a friend or sister for his wife, there he was as diligent in searching for even the least trait of innocence and youth, which might have escaped discovery, as he had been to show the bloom of the little purple heath-flowers that grew lonely and embedded in the crevice of a rock. The first disheartening circumstance in her married life was the coldness of her reception among the few whom she would have selected as objects of confidence and esteem. There is a feeling which induces us, even at first sight, to wish for the acquaintance and regard of some whom we meet in the many strange and flitting scenes of human life. We wish for their society, from a presentiment that there is somethimg in them at present unknown, which we believe will or might make us happy.

It is frequently one of the notices of heaven, to direct us to the purest fountains of sincerity; and of this had Emily many times been conscious; but numerous as were her acquaintance, and various as their minds and manners, in one particular she perceived a painful coincidence. They would not admit her to friendship. So far as the common scenes and subjects of the world they were attentive, even kind; but if ever she ventured on some expression of thought or hope, which might calculate on another's interest in her own happiness, they made it known by a change more cold than silence-that she was a Protestant's daughter-I will not say that they shunned her as a heretic, for such was by no means the case; but they felt an indescribable reluctance to form any ties of intimacy with a young married woman of a religion different from their own—a religion which, flourishing in imperial power, looked down, as they thought, upon their persecuted Church, and held their solemnities in contempt. They judged of her as if the old imputation of magic adhered to her profession of Christianity; as if she was read in secrets or practised in mysteries, which profaned the name

of piety, and chilled the communion of all earthly affections.

Emily mourned at this exile for a time, but its intensity was relieved by the consolations to which she turned in the hour of sadness and dejection. She felt that though all were to forsake her, yet there would be One with her stillwho could soften melancholy to submission, and turn sorrow unto joy, and build even in the darkness and solitude of her soul a temple for his own eternal presence, and make her own living heart one of the many mansions of heaven. She felt this more deeply and sweetly still, when she became gradually conscious that she could not wrap herself from the inclement coldness of the world in a husband's affections. A change came o'er the spirit of her dream. During the first months of her bridal, every thing had been done to recommend and adorn the household religion of Barguy. Did she express aversion or regret at the merry pastime of the Sabbath eve, it was hushed at her bidding. The very menials offered a stealthy service in the old chapel of the castle. She seldom saw the priest of the family, and Adrian wore no crucifix. She began almost to believe, that

in the Roman Catholic religion there was nothing against which, as a Christian wife and child, she was called upon to protest. They never conversed about creeds and litanies, and traditions of the dark ages-seldom upon any sacred subject. She carried with her all the divinity she had ever learned and loved: it consisted in prayer and the Holy Scriptures.

Insensibly, however, the conversation of those hours when they were together grew more solemn and interesting than it had been in the earlier days of their attachment. She was delighted to find an approach to those bright and holy allusions which had been so long forbidden. Loving her husband fervently and fondly as she did, how could she be happy when he did not partake of those services and thoughts which she knew to be sources of unmingled blessedness? Often when, in the distant Church of Kilkeven, she joined in that rite of Christianity which is the most awful and affecting, often would the sigh heave bitterly, and the tear swell and fall, when she thought that even of the cup of salvation she must drink alone. Never did one harsh or fearful suggestion as to her husband's future bliss ever enter into a mind

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