t's off my mind!" said he.

At last September came; a few more weeks, and they would separate,
perhaps, to the four corners of the earth. Mr. Raleigh arrived one
afternoon at the Bawn, and finding no one to welcome him,--that is to
say, Mrs. Laudersdale had gone out, and Helen Heath was invisible,--he
betook himself to a solitary stroll, and, by a short cut through the
woods, to the highway, and just before emerging from the green shadows
he met Mrs. Laudersdale.

"Whither now, Wandering Willie?" said she; for, singularly enough, they
seemed to avoid speaking each other's name in direct address, using
always some title suggested by their reading or singing, or some
sportive impromptu.

"I am going to take the road."

"Like a gallant highwayman?" And without more ado, and naturally enough,
she accompanied him.

The conversation, this afternoon, was sufficiently insignificant;
indeed, Mrs. Laudersdale always affected you more by her silence than
her speech, by what she was rather than by what she said; and it is
only the impression produced on her by this walk with which we have any
concern.

The road, narrow and winding in high banks fringed with golden-rod and
purple asters, was at first completely shadowed,--an old, deep-rutted,
cross country road, birch-trees shivering at either side, and every now
and then a puff of pine-breath drifting in between. After a time it rose
gradually into the turnpike, and became a long, dusty track, stretching
as far as the eye could see, a straight, dazzling line, burnt white by
summer-heats, powdered by travel. There was no wind stirring; the sky
was lost in a hot film stained here and there with sulphurous wreaths;
the distant fields, skirted by low hills, were bathed in an azure
mist; nearer, a veil of dun and dimmer smoke from burning brush hung
motionless; around their feet the dust whirled and fell again. Bathed
in soft, voluptuous tints, hazed and mellowed, into what weird, strange
country were they hastening? What visionary land of delight, replete
with perfume and luxury, lay ever beyond?--what region rich, unknown,
forbidden, whose rank vegetation steamed with such insidious poison? And
on what arid, barren road, what weary road,--but, alas, long worn and
beaten by the feet of other wayfarers! a road that ran real and strong
through this noxious and seducing mirage!

A sudden blast of wind lifted a cloud of dust from before them and
twisted it down among the meadows;