Page:The Gift, a Christmas and New Year's Present for 1842.djvu/169

Rh that I would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of earth—that I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the universe to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of him, and of her, a saint in Elysium, should I prove traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burden had been taken from her breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made acceptance of the vow—for what was she but a child? and it made easy to her the bed of her death. And she said to me, not many days afterwards, tranquilly dying, that because of what I had done for the comfort of her spirit, she would watch over me in that spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her, return to me visibly in the watches of the night; but if this thing were indeed beyond the power of the souls in Paradise, that she would at least give me frequent indications of her presence, sighing upon me in the evening winds, or filling the air which I breathed with perfume from the censers of the angels. And with these words upon her lips she yielded up her innocent life, putting end to the first epoch of my own.

Thus far I have faithfully said; but, as I pass the barrier in time's path formed by the death of my beloved, and proceed into the second era of my existence, I feel that a vague shadow gathers over my brain, and I mistrust the perfect sanity of the record. But let me on. Years dragged themselves along heavily, and still, with the aged mother of Eleonora, I dwelled within the Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass. A second change had come upon