is joy, to see you again, and on these thresholds. I
have just come from your house; I went there on purpose to congratulate
you, and to talk to you about Lilian. But you have seen her?"

"Yes; I have but this moment left her. Come this way." I drew Mrs.
Ashleigh back into the garden, along the old winding walk, which the
shrubs concealed from view of the house. We sat down on a rustic seat
where I had often sat with Lilian, midway between the house and the
Monks' Well. I told the mother what had passed between me and her
daughter; I made no complaint of Lilian's coldness and change; I did not
hint at its cause. "Girls of her age will change," said I, "and all
that now remains is for us two to agree on such a tale to our curious
neighbours as may rest the whole blame on me. Man's name is of robust
fibre; it could not push its way to a place in the world, if it could
not bear, without sinking, the load idle tongues may lay on it. Not so
Woman's Name: what is but gossip against Man, is scandal against Woman."

"Do not be rash, my dear Allen," said Mrs. Ashleigh, in great distress.
"I feel for you, I understand you; in your case I might act as you do. I
cannot blame you. Lilian is changed,--changed unaccountably. Yet sure
I am that the change is only on the surface, that her heart is really
yours, as entirely and as faithfully as ever it was; and that later,
when she recovers from the strange, dreamy kind of torpor which appears
to have come over all her faculties and all her affections, she would
awake with a despair which you cannot conjecture to the knowledge that
you had renounced her."

"I have not renounced her," said I, impatiently; "I did but restore her
freedom of choice. But pass by this now, and explain to me more fully
the change in your daughter, which I gather from your words is not
confined to me."

"I wished to speak of it before you saw her, and for that reason came to
your house. It was on the morning in which we left her aunt's to return
hither that I first noticed some thing peculiar in her look and manner.
She seemed absorbed and absent, so much so that I asked her several
times to tell me what made her so grave; but I could only get from her
that she had had a confused dream which she could not recall distinctly
enough to relate, but that she was sure it boded evil. During the
journey she became gradually more herself, and began to look forward
with delight to the idea of seeing you again. Well, yo