invested with authority, as if the suitor's
parent, had interfered, questioned, reproached, counselled. And it was
evident that the suit was not one that dishonoured; it wooed to flight,
but still to marriage.

And now these sentences grew briefer still, as with the decision of a
strong resolve. And to these there followed a passage so exquisite, that
Leonard wept unconsciously as he read. It was the description of a
visit spent at home previous to some sorrowful departure. He caught the
glimpse of a proud and vain, but a tender wistful mother, of a father's
fonder but less thoughtful love. And then came a quiet soothing scene
between the girl and her first village lover, ending thus: "So she put
M.'s hand into her sister's, and said, 'You loved me through the fancy,
love her with the heart,' and left them comprehending each other, and
betrothed."

Leonard sighed. He understood now how Mark Fairfield saw, in the homely
features of his unlettered wife, the reflection of the sister's soul and
face.

A few words told the final parting,--words that were a picture. The long
friendless highway, stretching on--on--towards the remorseless city,
and the doors of home opening on the desolate thoroughfare, and the old
pollard-tree beside the threshold, with the ravens wheeling round it and
calling to their young. He too had watched that threshold from the same
desolate thoroughfare. He too had heard the cry of the ravens. Then
came some pages covered with snatches of melancholy verse, or some
reflections of dreamy gloom.

The writer was in London, in the house of some high-born
patroness,--that friendless shadow of a friend which the jargon of
society calls "companion." And she was looking on the bright storm of
the world as through prison bars. Poor bird, afar from the greenwood,
she had need of song,--it was her last link with freedom and nature. The
patroness seems to share in her apprehensions of the boy suitor, whose
wild rash prayers the fugitive had resisted; but to fear lest the suitor
should be degraded, not the one whom he pursues,--fear an alliance
ill-suited to a high-born heir. And this kind of fear stings the
writer's pride, and she grows harsh in her judgment of him who thus
causes but pain where he proffers love. Then there is a reference to
some applicant for her hand, who is pressed upon her choice; and she is
told that it is her duty so to choose, and thus deliver a noble family
from a dread that endures so