this
page of Nature, written by the greatest of poets, Chance; to whom the
wild luxuriance of creation when apparently abandoned to itself is
owing.

The village of Jarvis was a lost point in the landscape, in this
immensity of Nature, sublime at this moment like all things else of
ephemeral life which present a fleeting image of perfection; for, by a
law fatal to no eyes but our own, creations which appear complete--the
love of our heart and the desire of our eyes--have but one spring-tide
here below. Standing on this breast-work of rock these three persons
might well suppose themselves alone in the universe.

"What beauty!" cried Wilfrid.

"Nature sings hymns," said Seraphita. "Is not her music exquisite? Tell
me, Wilfrid, could any of the women you once knew create such a glorious
retreat for herself as this? I am conscious here of a feeling seldom
inspired by the sight of cities, a longing to lie down amid this
quickening verdure. Here, with eyes to heaven and an open heart, lost in
the bosom of immensity, I could hear the sighings of the flower, scarce
budded, which longs for wings, or the cry of the eider grieving that it
can only fly, and remember the desires of man who, issuing from all,
is none the less ever longing. But that, Wilfrid, is only a woman's
thought. You find seductive fancies in the wreathing mists, the
light embroidered veils which Nature dons like a coy maiden, in this
atmosphere where she perfumes for her spousals the greenery of her
tresses. You seek the naiad's form amid the gauzy vapors, and to your
thinking my ears should listen only to the virile voice of the Torrent."

"But Love is there, like the bee in the calyx of the flower," replied
Wilfrid, perceiving for the first time a trace of earthly sentiment in
her words, and fancying the moment favorable for an expression of his
passionate tenderness.

"Always there?" said Seraphita, smiling. Minna had left them for a
moment to gather the blue saxifrages growing on a rock above.

"Always," repeated Wilfrid. "Hear me," he said, with a masterful glance
which was foiled as by a diamond breast-plate. "You know not what I am,
nor what I can be, nor what I will. Do not reject my last entreaty.
Be mine for the good of that world whose happiness you bear upon your
heart. Be mine that my conscience may be pure; that a voice divine
may sound in my ears and infuse Good into the great enterprise I have
undertaken prompted by my hatred to the nati