Page:Blind Allan (2).pdf/4

 4 These two humble and happy persons were be- trothed in marriage. Their affection had insensi- bly grown without any courtship, for they had lived daily in each other's sight; and, undisturbed by jealously or rivalry, by agitating hopes or depres- sing fears, their hearts had been tenderly united long before their troth was solemnly pledged, and they now looked forward with a calm and rational satisfaction to the happy years, which they hum- bly hoped might be stored up for them by a boun- tiful Providence. Their love was without romance, but it was warm, tender and true; they were pre pared by its strength to make any sacrifice for each other's sakes; and, had death taken away either of them before the wedding-day, the survivor might not perhaps have been clamorous in grief, or visited the grave of the departed with nightly lamenta- tations, but not the less would that grief have been sincere, and not the less faithful would memory have been to all the images of the past.

Their marriage day was fixed--and Allan Bruce had rented a small cottage, with a garden sloping down to the stream that cheered his native village. Thither, in about two months, he was to take his sweet and affectionate Fanny—she was to work with her needle as before-and he in the fields. No change was to take place in their lives, but a change of contentment to happiness; and if God prolonged to them the possession of health, and