very sad. This country looked wild to
me then, but now----" She broke off, and Lord Grenville did not dare to
look at her.

"All this pleasure I owe to you," Julie began at last, after a long
silence. "Only the living can feel the joy of life, and until now have
I not been dead to it all? You have given me more than health, you have
made me feel all its worth--"

Women have an inimitable talent for giving utterance to strong feelings
in colorless words; a woman's eloquence lies in tone and gesture, manner
and glance. Lord Grenville hid his face in his hands, for his tears
filled his eyes. This was Julie's first word of thanks since they left
Paris a year ago.

For a whole year he had watched over the Marquise, putting his whole
self into the task. D'Aiglemont seconding him, he had taken her first to
Aix, then to la Rochelle, to be near the sea. From moment to moment he
had watched the changes worked in Julie's shattered constitution by
his wise and simple prescriptions. He had cultivated her health as
an enthusiastic gardener might cultivate a rare flower. Yet, to all
appearance, the Marquise had quietly accepted Arthur's skill and care
with the egoism of a spoiled Parisienne, or like a courtesan who has
no idea of the cost of things, nor of the worth of a man, and judges of
both by their comparative usefulness to her.

The influence of places upon us is a fact worth remarking. If melancholy
comes over us by the margin of a great water, another indelible law
of our nature so orders it that the mountains exercise a purifying
influence upon our feelings, and among the hills passion gains in depth
by all that it apparently loses in vivacity. Perhaps it was the light of
the wide country by the Loire, the height of the fair sloping hillside
on which the lovers sat, that induced the calm bliss of the moment
when the whole extent of the passion that lies beneath a few
insignificant-sounding words is divined for the first time with a
delicious sense of happiness.

Julie had scarcely spoken the words which had moved Lord Grenville so
deeply, when a caressing breeze ruffled the treetops and filled the air
with coolness from the river; a few clouds crossed the sky, and the soft
cloud-shadows brought out all the beauty of the fair land below.

Julie turned away her head, lest Arthur should see the tears which she
succeeded in repressing; his emotion had spread at once to her. She
dried her eyes, but she dared not raise them