ss from the reflex radiance of her regard! A
flush of summer mantled over the face of nature, the flush of a deeper
summer than that of the year--of the joy that lies at the heart of all
summers. For a whole week of hail, sleet, and "watery sunbeams"
followed, and yet in the eyes of Alec the face of nature still glowed.

When, after long expectation, the day arrived, Alec could not rest. He
wandered about all day, haunting his mother as she prepared his room
for Kate, hurrying away with a sudden sense of the propriety of
indifference, and hurrying back on some cunning pretext, while his
mother smiled to herself at his eagerness and the transparency of his
artifice. At length, as the hour drew near, he could restrain himself
no longer. He rushed to the stable, saddled his pony, which was in
nearly as high spirits as himself, and galloped off to meet the mail.
The sun was nearing the west; a slight shower had just fallen; the
thanks of the thirsty earth were ascending in odour; and the wind was
too gentle to shake the drops from the leaves. To Alec, the wind of his
own speed was the river that bore her towards him; the odours were
wafted from her approach; and the sunset sleepiness around was the
exhaustion of the region that longed for her Cytheraean presence.

At last, as he turned a corner of the road, there was the coach; and he
had just time to wheel his pony about before it was up with him. A
little gloved hand greeted him; the window was let down; and the face
he had been longing for shone out lovelier than ever. There was no
inside passenger but herself; and, leaning with one hand on the
coach-door, he rode alongside till they drew near the place where the
gig was waiting for them, when he dashed on, gave his pony to the man,
was ready to help her as soon as the coach stopped, and so drove her
home in triumph to his mother.

Where the coach stopped, on the opposite side of the way, a grassy
field, which fell like a mantle from the shoulders of a hill crowned
with firs, sloped down to the edge of the road. From the coach, the sun
was hidden behind a thick clump of trees, but his rays, now red with
rich age, flowed in a wide stream over the grass, and shone on an old
Scotch fir which stood a yard or two from the highway, making its red
bark glow like the pools which the prophet saw in the desert. At the
foot of this tree sat Tibbie Dyster; and from her red cloak the level
sun-tide was thrown back in gorgeous glory