her first oblivion of all
that had chanced since they met; she blushed deeply, and drew herself
gently and bashfully from his embrace. "Ah," she said, in altered and
humbled accents, "you have loved another! Perhaps you have no love left
for me! Is it so; is it? No, no; those eyes--you love me--you love me
still!"

And again she clung to him, as if it were heaven to believe all things,
and death to doubt. Then, after a pause, she drew him gently with both
her hands towards the light, and gazed upon him fondly, proudly, as if
to trace, line by line, and feature by feature, the countenance which
had been to her sweet thoughts as the sunlight to the flowers. "Changed,
changed," she muttered; "but still the same,--still beautiful, still
divine!" She stopped. A sudden thought struck her: his garments were
worn and soiled by travel, and that princely crest, fallen and dejected,
no longer towered in proud defiance above the sons of men. "You are not
rich," she exclaimed eagerly,--"say you are not rich! I am rich enough
for both; it is all yours,--all yours; I did not betray you for it;
there is no shame in it. Oh, we shall be so happy! Thou art come back to
thy poor Alice! thou knowest how she loved thee!"

There was in Alice's manner, her wild joy, something so different from
her ordinary self, that none who could have seen her--quiet, pensive,
subdued--would have fancied her the same being. All that Society and
its woes had taught were gone; and Nature once more claimed her fairest
child. The very years seemed to have fallen from her brow, and she
looked scarcely older than when she had stood with him beneath the
moonlight by the violet banks far away. Suddenly, her colour faded; the
smile passed from the dimpled lips; a sad and solemn aspect succeeded
to that expression of passionate joy. "Come," she said, in a whisper,
"come, follow;" and still clasping his hand, she drew him to the door.
Silent and wonderingly he followed her across the lawn, through the
moss-grown gate, and into the lonely burial-ground. She moved on with
a noiseless and gliding step,--so pale, so hushed, so breathless, that
even in the noonday you might have half fancied the fair shape was not
owned by earth. She paused where the yew-tree cast its gloomy shadow;
and the small and tombless mound, separated from the rest, was before
them. She pointed to it, and falling on her knees beside it, murmured,
"Hush, it sleeps below,--thy child!" She covered he