st of us. Her
voice is splendid, and Professor Hale wanted her to lead, as she often
does, but she wouldn't sing that, she said,--no, not for anything; and
though we all begged, she refused,--flat."

"Shocking! what total depravity! I wonder is she converting Surrey to
her heresies."

No, she wasn't; not unless silence is more potent than words; for after
they had danced together Surrey brought her to one of the great windows
facing towards the sea, and, leaning over her chair, there was stillness
between them as their eyes went out into the night.

A wild night! great clouds drifted across the moon, which shone out
anon, with light intensified, defining the stripped trees and desolate
landscape, and then the beach, and

"Marked with spray
The sunken reefs, and far away
The unquiet, bright Atlantic plain,"

while through all sounded incessantly the mournful roar of buffeting
wind and surging tide; and whether it was the scene, or the solemn
undertone of the sea, the dance music, which a little while before had
been so gay, sounded like a wail.

How could it be otherwise? Passion is akin to pain. Love never yet
penetrated an intense nature and made the heart light; sentiment has its
smiles, its blushes, its brightness, its words of fancy and feeling,
readily and at will; but when the internal sub-soiling is broken up, the
heart swells with a steady and tremendous pressure till the breast feels
like bursting; the lips are dumb, or open only to speak upon indifferent
themes. Flowers may be played with, but one never yet cared to toy with
flame.

There are souls that are created for one another in the eternities,
hearts that are predestined each to each, from the absolute necessities
of their nature; and when this man and this woman come face to face,
these hearts throb and are one; these souls recognize "my master!" "my
mistress!" at the first glance, without words uttered or vows
pronounced.

These two young lives, so fresh, so beautiful; these beings, in many
things such antipodes, so utterly dissimilar in person, so unlike, yet
like; their whole acquaintance a glance on a crowded street and these
few hours of meeting,--looked into one another's eyes, and felt their
whole nature set each to each, as the vast tide "of the bright, rocking
ocean sets to shore at the full moon."

These things are possible. Friendship is excellent, and friendship may
be called love; but it is not love. It may be more en