t rays
Just lingered on the hill;
Or the moon's pale light, with the coming night,
Shone o'er our pathway still.

"The old days we remember,
O, there's nothing like them now!
The glow has faded from our hearts,
The blossom from the bough.
A bitter sigh for the hours gone by,
The dreams that might not last;
The friends deemed true when our hopes were new,
And the glorious visions past."

Rufus Malcome, as the accepted suitor of Florence, paid regular visits
to her father's mansion. Great was the glee of Hannah Doliver to behold
the young couple together; and great the nervous disquiet evinced by the
invalided Mrs. Howard when she was aware of the young man's presence in
the house. She had never met him, as her health, which had in the last
six months rapidly declined, confined her now entirely to her room, and
indisposed her more strongly than ever to behold strange faces.

The only person she had ever been known to express a wish to see, since
her residence in Wimbledon, was Edith Malcome,--a wish excited, perhaps,
by Florence's warm praises of the grace and beauty of her young friend,
who was as different from Rufus, she said, "as a sweet pink from an
odious poppy."

But Edith, strange as it may appear, had never visited at the Howards',
though often warmly invited by the whole family.

The colonel invariably excused her in his easy, graceful manner, saying
she was "a timid little thing, and dreaded to go for a moment from her
father's side." Latterly, her illness had been sufficient reason for her
seclusion.

Florence was restricted from frequent visits to her sick friend by the
state of her own health, which had grown so feeble and delicate as to
alarm her father exceedingly. Dr. Potipher was consulted, and strongly
advised travel and change of scene as the most effectual remedy for the
feverish disease that seemed preying upon her constitution.

Major Howard was very willing to take his daughter on a tour of travel,
but knew not how to leave his invalid lady, whose strength he thought to
be gradually failing. She was far too low for him to indulge the idea of
making her one of the party, and he was about relinquishing the project
in despair, when, on mentioning the subject to the sick woman, great was
his surprise to find her even more anxious and earnest for his departure