between us and our hoped-for day of repentance, that the gates of paradise shall be closed against us. And yet may there not still be a blessed hope, that those gates will not be rigidly closed to the entrance of many thousands who did not, while they lived, appear to have altogether abandoned the pomps and vanities of this wicked world; but whose wishes to be endowed with strength to do so were strong, and, to their deep regret, only partially successful. The career of the friend who sat by my side illustrates this thought.
The appearance of the grand and wonderful star brought with it also most joyous remembrances of what I had seen and heard of the Doctor's lovely friend Helen. The sympathetic reader who takes the trouble to read this book will, I am sure, take almost as much interest in her as I did. Still, she was a total stranger. I knew nothing of her, and had foolishly thrown away the excellent opportunity lately afforded me for acquiring that desirable knowledge. If she had not been the Doctor's actual wife, she certainly was his betrothed bride, prevented probably from being his wife by one or more of those unforeseen, perhaps tragic, incidents which sometimes intervene between our expected happiness and its fulfilment. The love and reverence due to her in the former relation was admirably foreshadowed by his passionate adoration of her in the latter. He had himself darkly hinted that such an event had occurred, and had mentioned the name of a man whose machinations had destroyed the happiness of them both. My interest in him and in her, on account of my dream, had been so powerfully excited that I felt myself longing to know more; and my pain when he snatched up the papers referring to her, and carried them away, was excessive. Her exquisite beauty, as I had seen her both in my dream and in the enchanted hall, was certainly sufficient to command adoration. The difference between
