h ever, as by instinct, beheld as the wisest. She grew to him
like a second conscience, diviner than his own. Each, therefore,
reflected virtue on the other, as planet illumines planet.

All these years of probation then, which might have soured a love less
holy, changed into weariness a love less intense, had only served to wed
them more intimately soul to soul; and in that spotless union what
happiness there was! what rapture in word and glance, and the slight,
restrained caress of innocence, beyond all the transports love only human
can bestow!

CHAPTER IV.

It was a bright still summer noon, when Harold sate with Edith amidst the
columns of the Druid temple, and in the shade which those vast and
mournful relics of a faith departed cast along the sward. And there,
conversing over the past, and planning the future, they had sate long,
when Hilda approached from the house, and entering the circle, leant her
arm upon the altar of the war-god, and gazing on Harold with a calm
triumph in her aspect, said:

"Did I not smile, son of Godwin, when, with thy short-sighted wisdom,
thou didst think to guard thy land and secure thy love, by urging the
monk-king to send over the seas for the Atheling? Did I not tell thee,
'Thou dost right, for in obeying thy judgment thou art but the instrument
of fate; and the coming of the Atheling shall speed thee nearer to the
ends of thy life, but not from the Atheling shalt thou take the crown of
thy love, and not by the Atheling shall the throne of Athelstan be
filled'?"

"Alas," said Harold, rising in agitation, "let me not hear of mischance
to that noble prince. He seemed sick and feeble when I parted from him;
but joy is a great restorer, and the air of the native land gives quick
health to the exile."

"Hark!" said Hilda, "you hear the passing bell for the soul of the son of
Ironsides!"

The mournful knell, as she spoke, came dull from the roofs of the city
afar, borne to their ears by the exceeding stillness of the atmosphere.
Edith crossed herself, and murmured a prayer according to the custom of
the age; then raising her eyes to Harold, she murmured, as she clasped
her hands:

"Be not saddened, Harold; hope still."

"Hope!" repeated Hilda, rising proudly from her recumbent position,
"Hope! in that knell from St. Paul's, dull indeed is thine ear, O Harold,
if thou hearest not the joy-bells that inaugurate a future king!"

The Earl started; his eyes shot fire; h