ewly-mown grass was wafted at intervals to the spot where they
stood. Wild flowers of various kinds were around them; the hawthorn
appearing like a tree of snow in the centre of a dark green hedge; the
modest primrose and the hidden violet yet lingered, as if loth to
depart, though their brethren of the summer had already put forth their
budding blossoms. A newly-severed trunk of an aged tree invited them to
sit and rest, and the most tasteful art could not have placed a rustic
seat in a more lovely scene.

Long and painfully did Mary gaze around her, as if she would engrave
within her heart every scene of the land she was so soon to leave.

"Herbert," she said, at length, "I never wished to gaze on futurity
before, but now, oh, I would give much to know if indeed I shall ever
gaze on these scenes again. Could I but think I might return to them,
the pang of leaving would lose one half its bitterness. I know this is a
weak and perhaps sinful feeling; but in vain I have lately striven to
bow resignedly to my Maker's will, even should His call meet me, as I
sometimes fear it will, in a foreign land, apart from all, save one,
whom I love on earth."

"Do not, do not think so, dearest Mary. True, indeed, there is no
parting without its fears, even for a week, a day, an hour. Death ever
hovers near us, to descend when least expected. But oh, for my sake,
Mary, dear Mary, talk not of dying in a foreign land. God's will is
best, His decree is love; I know, I feel it, and on this subject from
our infancy we have felt alike; to you alone have I felt that I dared
breathe the holy aspirations sometimes my own. I am not wont to be
sanguine, but somewhat whispers within me you will return--these scenes
behold again."

Mary gazed on her young companion, he had spoken with unwonted
animation, and his mild eye rested with trusting fondness upon her; she
dared not meet it; her pale cheek suddenly became crimson, but with an
effort she replied--

"Buoy me not up with vain hopes, Herbert; it is better, perhaps, that I
should never look to my return, for hope might descend to vain wishes,
and wishes to repinings, which must not be. I shall look on other scenes
of loveliness, and though in them perhaps no fond association of earth
may be mingled, yet there is one of which no change of country can
deprive me, one association that from scenes as these can never never
fly. The friends of my youth will be no longer near me, strangers alone