ont
of Westwood's house, that Cynthia had a moment in which to compare her
present impressions with her past. It struck her that Hubert looked
older, as well as graver and sadder, and perhaps more dignified. His
hair was turning gray and thin at the temples; his moustache was also
streaked with white--bleached, as Cynthia knew, by trouble, not by age.
He was thin, but he looked stronger than when she saw him last; and his
gait was firm and elastic. His face was slightly tanned--probably by the
sun and sea-air in his recent expedition from England--and the brown hue
gave him a look of health and vigor which he had not possessed in
England. But the change in his expression was more striking to Cynthia
than any alteration in physical aspect. His eyes had lost their anxious
restlessness, his mouth was set as if in steadfast resolution; his brow
was calm. He looked like a man who had gone "through much tribulation,"
but had come out victor at the last.

And Cynthia--was she changed? He had thought so when he came upon her
that afternoon; but his heart had yearned over her all the more fondly
for the change. He had never seen her so thin, so pale, so worn; the
dark eyes had not been set in such hollows of shadow when he last saw
her; the cheeks had never before been so colorless. He felt that she had
suffered for him--that she had borne his punishment with himself; and
the thought made it difficult for him to restrain himself from falling
at her feet and kissing the very hem of her garment as he looked at her.
But at dinner she looked more like her old beautiful self. She was in
black when he arrived; but she came to dinner in a pretty gown of
cream-colored embroidered muslin, with a bunch of crimson flowers at her
bosom. The color had come back to her cheeks too, and the light to her
eyes--he saw that, though he could not get her to look at him.

Cynthia sat in the window, not daring to join the party on the
piazza--hoping perhaps that one of them would separate himself from the
others and come to her. Hubert was walking with her father now--up and
down, up and down, deep in talk. Was it merely talk of politics and
farming and common things?

She saw them withdraw to a corner of the piazza where they could
converse unheard by their companions. Westwood was smoking; but his
speech was fluent, Cynthia could see; he was laying down the law,
emphasising his sentences by an outstretched finger, blowing great rings
of smoke int