oving, stolen kisses. On the fells, in the garden, in the empty,
silent rooms of the old house, it was a repetition of the same divine
song, with wondrously celestial variations. Goethe puts in Faust an
Interlude in Heaven: Fenwick and Aspatria were in their Interlude.

One evening they stood among the wheat-sheaves. The round, yellow
harvest-moon was just rising above the fells, and the stars trembling
into vision. The reapers had gone away; their voices made faint,
fitful echoes down the misty lane. The Squire was driving home one
load of ripe wheat, and Brune another. Aspatria said softly, "The day
is over. We must go home. Come!"

She stood in the warm mystical light, with one hand upon the bound
sheaf, the other stretched out to him. Her slim form in its white
dress, her upturned face, her star-like eyes,--he saw all at a glance.
He was subjugated to the innermost room of his heart. He answered,
with inexpressible emotion,--

"Come! Come to me, my Dear One! My Love! My Joy! My Wife!" He held her
close to his heart; he claimed her by no formal special yes, but by
all the sweet reluctances and sweeter yieldings, the thousand nameless
consents won day by day.

Oh, the glory of that homeward walk! The moon beamed upon them. The
trees bent down to touch them. The heath and the honeysuckle made a
posy for them. The nightingale sang them a canticle. They did not seem
to walk; they trod on ether; they moved as people move in happy dreams
of other stars, where thought and wish are motion. It would have been
heaven upon earth if those minutes could have lasted; but it was only
an interlude.

That night Fenwick spoke to Squire William and asked him for his
sister. The Squire was honestly confounded by the question. Aspatria
was such a little lass! It was beyond everything to talk of marrying
her. Still, in his heart he was proud and pleased at such high fortune
for the little lass; and he said, as soon as Fenwick's father and
family came forward as they should do, he would never be the one to
say nay.

Fenwick's father lived at Fenwick Castle, on the shore of bleak
Northumberland. He was an old man, but his natural feelings and wisdom
were not abated. He consulted the History of Cumberland, and found
that the family of Ambar-Anneys was as ancient and honourable as his
own. But the girl was country-bred, and her fortune was small, and in
a measure dependent upon her brother's management of the estate. A
careless master