it with her own. These
hours, to the last, should still be restful. She would not think,
to-night, of those words that had startled her so--of all they suggested
or might mean--of life's great possibility lost to him, away back in the
sorrowful past, as she also, perhaps was missing it--relinquishing
it--now.

She knew not that his thought had been utterly self-forgetful. She
believed that he had told her, indirectly, of himself, when he had
spoken those dreary syllables--"the game is changed. Its soul is gone!"

CHAPTER XXVI.

LAKESIDE.

"Look! are the southern curtains drawn?
Fetch me a fan, and so begone!
. . . . .
Rain me sweet odors on the air,
And wheel me up my Indian chair;
And spread some book not overwise
Flat out before my sleepy eyes."
O. W. HOLMES.

The Rushleighs' breakfast room at Lakeside was very lovely in a summer's
morning.

Looking off, northwestwardly, across the head of the Pond, the long
windows, opening down to the piazza, let in all the light and joy of the
early day, and that indescribable freshness born from the union of woods
and water.

Faith had come down long before the others, this fair Wednesday morning.

Mr. Rushleigh found her, when he entered, sitting by a window--a book
upon her lap, to be sure--but her eyes away off over the lake, and a
look in them that told of thoughts horizoned yet more distantly.

Last night, he had brought home Paul's first letter.

When he gave it to her, at tea time, with a gay and kindly word, the
color that deepened vividly upon her face, and the quiet way in which
she laid it down beside her plate, were nothing strange, perhaps;
but--was he wrong? the eyes that drooped so quickly as the blushes rose,
and then lifted themselves again so timidly to him as he next addressed
her, were surely brimmed with feeling that was not quite, or wholly
glad.

And now, this wistful, silent, musing, far-off look!

"Good morning, Faithie!"

"Good morning." And the glance came back--the reverie was
broken--Faith's spirit informed her visible presence again, and bade
him true and gentle welcome. "You haven't your morning paper yet? I'll
bring it. Thomas left it in the library, I think. He came back from the
early train, half an hour ago."

"Can't you women tell what's the matter with each other?" said Mr.
Rushleigh to his daughter, who entered by the other door, as Faith went
out into