Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/317

 Northern home, taking his prisoner, Margaret, with him, while her heart was left as hostage in the hands of that disturber of the peace, Robert Feuardent, who gave bonds to appear when the summer was over and restore the hostage, only again to take possession of it and the prisoner in the early autumn days, when the land should be glad with the fulness of the harvest.

And so with heavy hearts Margaret and Robert parted, each full of gloomy forebodings that they should not live to see that golden day when the virgin Atalanta should turn from the worship of Diana to burn incense before the altar of Hymen.

Ah, me! for those fond, foolish, loving days whose pain seems unendurable, those partings and meetings which tear the heart-strings, how quickly do they pass! How tenderly are they remembered in the after-time, when love has cooled, even if it has strengthened into steadfast affection. We agonize over the love-tortures, and cry out that they make life too hard for us to bear; and yet when they are past and gone, we count each moment of that time as a grain of gold in the sombre sands of life, and would gladly give a year of the prosaic contentment of our prosperous lives for one moment of that pain which is the most pleasureful thing that life has held for us!