The Senator's Bride

It was 1866, on the evening of a lovely spring day, and my heroine was gathering flowers in one of the loveliest of the lovely gardens of that sea-port city, Norfolk, Virginia.A lovely garden indeed, with its spacious area, its graveled walks and fountains, its graceful pavilions, its beautiful flowers, and the tasteful villa that rose in the midst of this terrestrial paradise looked very attractive outlined whitely against the dark green of the lofty grove of trees stretching far into its rear. Built on the suburbs of the city, in the portion of it known as Ocean View, you could scarcely have imagined a fairer prospect than that which met the eyes of the two gentlemen who idly smoked and talked on the wide piazza fronting the sea.The sun was setting in a blue May sky, sinking slowly and sadly beneath the level of the sea, while far away, just faintly outlined by its fading beams, glimmered the white sails and[Pg 4] tapering spars of an outward-bound ship. How lonely it looked on that vast ocean in the fading light,"Like the last beam that reddens over one—That sinks with those we love below the verge."To a poetic mind, the sight suggested many exquisite similitudes, and Bruce Conway took the cigar from between his lips and mused sadly as befitted the occasion, till the voice of his companion jarred suddenly on his dreamy mood.