what a heart! No, not heart, Allen,--that bird
in its cage has a heart: soul--what a soul!"

CHAPTER LIX.

How innocent was Lilian's virgin blush when I knelt to her, and prayed
that she would forestall the date that had been fixed for our union, and
be my bride before the breath of the autumn had withered the pomp of
the woodland and silenced the song of the birds! Meanwhile, I was so
fearfully anxious that she should risk no danger of hearing, even
of surmising, the cruel slander against her--should meet no cold
contemptuous looks, above all, should be safe from the barbed talk of
Mrs. Poyntz--that I insisted on the necessity of immediate change of air
and scene. I proposed that we should all three depart, the next day, for
the banks of my own beloved and native Windermere. By that pure mountain
air, Lilian's health would be soon re-established; in the church
hallowed to me by the graves of my fathers our vows should be plighted.
No calumny had ever cast a shadow over those graves. I felt as if my
bride would be safer in the neighbourhood of my mother's tomb.

I carried my point: it was so arranged. Mrs. Ashleigh, however, was
reluctant to leave before she had seen her dear friend, Margaret Poyntz.
I had not the courage to tell her what she might expect to hear from
that dear friend, but, as delicately as I could, I informed her that I
had already seen the Queen of the Hill, and contradicted the gossip that
had reached her; but that as yet, like other absolute sovereigns, the
Queen of the Hill thought it politic to go with the popular stream,
reserving all check on its direction till the rush of its torrent might
slacken; and that it would be infinitely wiser in Mrs. Ashleigh to
postpone conversation with Mrs. Poyntz until Lilian's return to L----
as my wife. Slander by that time would have wearied itself out, and Mrs.
Poyntz (assuming her friendship to Mrs. Ashleigh to be sincere) would
then be enabled to say with authority to her subjects, "Dr. Fenwick
alone knows the facts of the story, and his marriage with Miss Ashleigh
refutes all the gossip to her prejudice."

I made that evening arrangements with a young and rising practitioner to
secure attendance on my patients during my absence. I passed the greater
part of the night in drawing up memoranda to guide my proxy in each
case, however humble the sufferer. This task finished, I chanced, in
searching for a small microscope, the wonders of which I though