There is a language of the heart which words cannot express,—thoughts, feelings, and affections too deep to be told, but revealed only in the eyes and voice, when with sincerity of emotion, such as Mr. Granville's, a long concealed attachment is at last declared.
"I have asked myself a thousand times whether I could make you happy, and if I believed," said he, "that there lived a man upon the earth who could love you more, or make you happier than myself, I would endeavor to resign all hope; but I know the lasting nature of my attachment, which time itself cannot alter, nor death finally extinguish; and if such affection as mine, with nothing else to offer, can make you happy, it will be a new motive to exertion on my part, and a new source of thankfulness to the Divine Giver of all good. Your brother knows better than most men the pecuniary embarrassment in which a long-continued law-suit has plunged me, and that my future income may not perhaps be large, but consult him,—and my very dear Marion, as I must for once be allowed to call you, consult your own wishes and your happiness. Before giving me a final answer, take some days to consider——"
"Not an hour,—or a moment," replied Marion, frankly, but with a faltering voice and glistening eye, while a vivid blush dyed her cheek, "I need only consider whether my own heart be worthy of you! I have thought sometimes,—I have dreamed of such happiness as ours shall be, but little did I hope ever to see it more than realized now!"
Love is with lovers an endless subject, and hours appeared like moments, while they conversed together on the past and the future with new feelings of confidence and joy, and the whole beautiful scenery around seemed as it were haunted by the spirit of thought and of enjoyment, while it was with a thrilling emotion of deep gratification that Marion now felt undoubtingly conscious that she had become indeed an object of preference to Mr. Granville, that she would be thought of always by one whom she could never forget, that she knew the whole story of his heart and affections, and that these were devoted,—ardently devoted to herself; and now resolutely discarding every apprehension of future difficulties or sorrows, all around took the color of her happiness, and she lived only in the joy of the present hour. Nothing required concealment between them, and it seemed the sole object of both to open up the most secret recesses of their minds, comparing opinions and feelings, while before long it appeared strange to Marion that a time had ever existed when their hearts were unknown to each other. No caprices, no misunderstandings, no jealousies could arise between them, for there seemed to be but one heart and one mind in common, from the moment when Marion whispered her confession, that their attachment was reciprocal.
Oh! there are looks and tones that dart,
An instant sunshine through the heart,
As if the soul that minute caught,
Some treasure it through life had sought.
At length they were warned to return homewards, by the golden light of a setting sun, which yet looked in glowing majesty over the distant hills, and sprinkled its glory on the highest tops of the trees, till they were tipped with fire; but Marion paused, in delighted admiration, on the centre of a rustic fairy-bridge, like a spider's web, thrown across the narrowest and deepest part of the swollen stream. Among rock and moss, tufted with weeping birch, the overhanging cliffs here formed themselves into two sides of a natural arch, in which nature had apparently omitted the key-stone, though art had supplied the deficiency, by a slight bridge, underneath which the sparkling waters boiled and thundered on with bewildering rapidity, like a stream of light, bounding and leaping, with a clamorous brawling uproar, along the rocky channel, and disappearing behind a bold promontory, over-grown with tall pines, and twisted with the knotted and gnarled roots of many an ancient oak.
The country seemed indeed clothed with a prodigality of beauty—the wild confusion of rocks—the feathered branches of a hundred trees—the sparkling sunbeams, sprinkled like scattered leaf-gold on every object—the shadows interlaced upon the verdant grass—the yellow broom, glowing with its sunny hues—the groups of well-conditioned cattle ruminating on the meadows—and the stream, now murmuring in wild music over its rocky bed, and dimpling into smiles beneath the sunshine, while the mind and conversation of Mr. Granville travelled into the highest regions of thought, and Marion compared the bright gay aspect of all around to her own happy feelings.