all, where intellect is
concerned," she says, absently. A slight smile plays about her lips,
and a light, that was not there a moment since, comes to life within
her eyes. With an effort, she arouses herself from what were plainly
happy daydreams, and comes back to the present, which, just now, is
happy too.

"I think nature meant me to be a nun," she says, smiling. "This place
subdues and touches me so. The sombre lights and shadows are so
impressive! If it were indeed mine (in reality), I should live a great
part of my time in it. Here, I should write my pleasantest letters,
and read my choicest books, take my afternoon tea, and make welcome my
dearest friends,--you among them. In fact, if it were practicable,"
nodding her pretty head emphatically, "I should steal this room. There
is hardly anything I would not do to make it my own."

Scrope regards her earnestly, with a certain amount of calm inquiry.
Is she a coquette, or merely unthinking? If, indeed, the face be the
index of the mind, one must account her free of all unworthy thought
or frivolous design. Here is

"A countenance in which do meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet."

Her eyes are still smiling up at him; her whole expression is full of
a gentle friendliness; and in his heart, at this moment, arises a
sensation that is not hope, or gladness, or despair, but yet is a
faint wild mingling of all three.

As for Clarissa, she stands a little apart, unconscious of all that is
passing in his heart, and gazes lovingly upon the objects that
surround her, as one will gaze now and then on things that have been
fondly remembered through the haze of many years. She is happy,
wrapped in memories of a past all sunshine and no shade, and is
ignorant of the meaning he would gladly attach to her last words.

"While I stay here I sin,--that is, I covet," she says, at length,
surprised by his silence, "and it grows late. Come, walk with me a
little way through the park: I have not yet seen the old path we used
to call the 'short cut' to Gowran, long ago."

So, down the dark stairs he follows her, across the stone flooring,
and into the hall outside, that seems so brilliant by contrast, and so
like another world, all is so changed, so different. Behind, lie
silence, unbroken, perfect, a sad and dreamy light, Old-World
grandeur; here, all is restless life, full of uncertain sounds, and
distant footsteps, and voices faint but positive.

"Is it not like a drea