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LIFE'S LITTLE IRONIES

had been observed in their demeanor as they had glided slong.

“Neither James nor Emily questioned the original motives of the unfortunate man and woman in putting to ses. They were both above auspicion as to intention. Whatever their mutual feelings might have led them on to, underhand behavior was foreign to the nature of either, Conjecture pictured that they might have fallen into tender reverie while gazing each into a pair of eyes that had formerly flashed for him and her alone, and, uuwilling to avow what their mutual sentiments were, they had continued: thas, oblivious of time and space, till darkness suddenly overtook them far from land, But nothing was truly known. It had been their destiny to die thus. The two halves, intended by Nature to make the perfect whole, bad failed in that result during their lives, though ‘in their death they were not divided,’ Their bodies were brought home, and buried on one day. I remember that, on looking round the ehureh-yard while reading the service, I observed nearly all the parish at their funeral.”

“It was so, sit,” said the clerk.

“The remaining two,” continued the curate (whose voice had grown husky while relating the lovers’ sad fate), “were a more thoughtful and far-seeing, though less romantic, couple than the first. They were now mutually bereft of a companion, and found themselves by this accident in a position to fulfil their destiny according to Natare’s plan and their own original and calmly-formed intention. James Hardcome took Emily to wife in the course of a year and a half; and the marriage proved in every respect a happy one, I solemnized the service, Hardcome having told me, when he came to give notice of the proposed wedding, the atory of his first wife's loss almost word for word as I have told it to you.”