More than two years had passed since Edith's visit to the old woman of the cliff. Changes had taken place in all the personages of my little tale; but in Edith they were most apparent. She who had sung all day as the birds sing, because she could not help it, at nineteen had learned to reflect and to analyze; a sensitive conscience had taken the place of spontaneous and impulsive virtue; and the same heart that could be happy all day long in nursing a young chicken, or watching the opening of a flower, or carrying food to a poor old woman, now closed her days with thinking, and moistened her pillow with unbidden tears.

It is the natural course of womanhood. Ah! that we could always be children. We have seen that after Edith had learned the story of the Lady Ursula, she began to solve some of the mysteries of life. She had since turned over many of its leaves, all fair with innocence and truth, but she had not yet found an answer to the question, "Why do we suffer?"

The change that had taken place in young Seymore was deeper and sterner, but not so apparent. Externally, he was the same beautiful youth that he was when we introduced him to our kind readers, in his attic.

Since then, he had had much to struggle with; but poverty had not been his greatest temptation. He could not indeed hope to be exempt from the bitter experience of almost all who at that time were scholars.

To this very day, the sons of clergymen, and many of the most distinguished men in New England, have held the plough in the intervals of their preparation for the university. How many poor mothers have striven, and labored, and denied themselves all but the bare necessaries of life, that their sons might gain that sole distinction in New England,—an education at one of the colleges.

Poverty was not his greatest trial. When he first saw Edith, her timid and innocent beauty had made an impression on his fancy, that all his subsequent dreams in solitude, and his lonely reveries, had only served to deepen. She seemed to embody all his imaginations of female loveliness. He had, indeed, never before seen a beautiful girl, and he had no acquaintance with women, except his grandmother.

The remembrance of his mother came softened to him, like something unconnected with earth; and when he thought of the darkened chamber, the pale, faint smile, her hand on his head, and her solemn consecration of him to the church, on her death-bed, he felt a sensation of awe that chilled and appalled him.

After his acquaintance with Edith and her father, life wore a brighter hue. His efforts to gain an education to distinguish himself were redoubled. Mr. Grafton aided in every way; and with the sympathy of his kind friend came the image of his beautiful daughter. His labors were lightened, his heart cheered, by the thought that she would smile and approve.

Thus days of bodily labor were succeeded by nights of study; and, for some time, with his youth and vigorous health, this was hardly felt as an evil. But we have seen, in our first chapter, that he had moments of despondency, and of late they had been of more frequent occurrence.

At such times, the remembrance of his mother, and her solemn dedication of him to the church, came back with redoubled power, and the time he had spent in lighter literature, in poetry, and even his dreams of Edith, seemed to him like sins. A darker and less joyous spirit was gradually overshadowing him. A morbid sensitiveness to moral evil, an exaggerated sense of his own sins, and of the strict requisitions of the spirit of the times, clouded his natural gayety.

His visits to the parsonage, indeed, always dissipated his fears for a little time. Edith received him as a valued friend, and he returned to his studies, cheered by her smiles, and sustained by new hopes.

He never analyzed the cause of this change, or the nature of his feelings: but, when he thought of his degree at the college, it was her sympathy and her approbation that came first to his mind; and, when he sent his thoughts forward to a settlement and a parsonage like that of his venerable friend's, it would have been empty, and desolate, and uninhabitable, if Edith had not been there.

It was in Edith's beloved father that a year had made the saddest change. The winter had been unusually severe, and the snow deep. His parish was much scattered, and it was his custom to visit them on horseback; and, in the deepest snows, and most severe storms, he had never refused to appear at their bedsides, or to visit and comfort the afflicted. He had lived, and labored, and loved among his simple flock, but he now felt that his ministry was drawing towards a close.

In March, he had returned from one of his visits late at night, and much wet and fatigued. The next morning he found himself ill with a lung fever. It left him debilitated, and much impaired in constitution; and a rapid decline seemed the almost inevitable consequence at his advanced age.