fortune; you could
do anything you liked to do."

The words entered her heart. They burned along her veins, they filled
her imagination with a thousand wild dreams. She put the fatal letters
safely away, and then, stretching her weary form upon her bed, she
closed her eyes and began to think.

Why should she cure fish, and mend nets, and clean tables and
tea-cups, if she possessed such a marvellous gift? Why should her
father go fishing with his life in his hand, and her mother work hard
from dawn to dark, and she herself want all the beautiful things her
soul craved? And how would Elizabeth feel? Perhaps they might be glad
enough yet if she married Roland. And as the possibility of returning
social slights presented itself, she remembered many a debt of this
kind it would be a joy to satisfy. And then Roland! Roland! Roland! He
had always believed in her; always loved her. She would repay his
trust and love a thousand-fold. What a joy it would be!

So she permitted herself to grasp impossibilities, to possess
everything she desired. Well, in this life, what mortals know is but
very little; what they imagine--ah, that is everything!

CHAPTER V.

WHAT SHALL BE DONE FOR ROLAND?

"When, lulled in passion's dream, my senses slept,
How did I act?--E'en as a wayward child.
I smiled with pleasure when I should have wept,
And wept with sorrow when I should have smiled."
--MONCRIEFF.

"Love not, love not! O warning vainly said
In present years, as in the years gone by;
Love flings a halo round the dear one's head,
Faultless, immortal--till they change or die."
--HON. MRS. NORTON.

Hope has a long reach, and yet it holds fast. So, though Roland's
return was far enough away, Denas possessed it in anticipation. The
belief that he would come, that he would give her sympathy and
assistance, helped her through the long sameness of uneventful days by
the witching promise, "Anon--anon!"

There was little to vary life in that quiet hamlet. The pilchard
season went, as it had come, in a day; men counted their gains and
returned to their usual life. Denas tried to accept it cheerfully; she
felt that it would soon be a past life, and this conviction helped her
to invest it with some of that tender charm which clings to whatever
enters the pathetic realm of "Nevermore."

Her parents were singularly kind to her, and John tried