ing that excessive moisture has inundated the
quiet uncomplaining earth. The "windy night" has not produced a "rainy
morrow;" on the contrary, the world seems athirst for drink again, and
is looking pale and languid because it comes not.

"Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around:
Full swell the woods."

Everything is richer for the welcome drops that fell last night. "The
very earth, the steamy air, is all with fragrance rife;" the flowers
lift up their heads and fling their perfume broadcast upon the flying
wind;

"And that same dew, which sometime within buds
Was wont to swell, like round and Orientpearls,
Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes,
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail."

Georgie, with scarcely any heart to see their beauty, passes by them,
and walks on until she reaches that part of Hythe wood that adjoins
their own. As she passes them, the gentle deer raise their heads and
sniff at her, and, with their wild eyes, entreat her to go by and
take no notice of them.

Autumn, with his "gold hand," is

"Gilding the falling leaf,
Bringing up winter to fulfil the year,
Bearing upon his back the riped sheaf."

All nature seems lovely, and, in coloring, intense. To look upon it is
to have one's heart widen and grow stronger and greater as its
divinity fills one's soul to overflowing. Yet to Georgie the hour
gives no joy: with lowered head and dejected mien she goes, scarce
heeding the glowing tints that meet her on every side. It is as though
she tells herself the world's beauty can avail her nothing, as, be the
day

"Foul, or even fair,
Methinks her hearte's joy is stained with some care."

Crossing a little brook that is babbling merrily, she enters the land
of Hythe; and, as she turns a corner (all rock, and covered with
quaint ferns and tender mosses), she comes face to face with an old
man, tall and lean, who is standing by a pool, planted by nature in a
piece of granite.

He is not altogether unknown to her. At church she has seen him twice,
and once in the village, though she has never been introduced to him,
has never interchanged a single word with him: it is Lord Sartoris.

He gazes at her intently. Perhaps he too knows who she is, but, if so,
he makes no sign. At last, unable to bear the silence any longer, she
says, naively and very gently,--

"I thought you were in Paris."

At this extraordinary rema