it himself. Ottilie said nothing, but she looked at him with her
eyes full of the warmest delight. Edward stretched out his arms. "You
love me!" he cried: "Ottilie, you love me!" They fell on each other's
breast--which had been the first to catch the other it would have been
impossible to distinguish.

From that moment the world was all changed for Edward. He was no longer
what he had been, and the world was no longer what it had been. They
parted--he held her hands; they gazed in each other's eyes. They were on
the point of embracing each other again.

Charlotte entered with the Captain. Edward inwardly smiled at their
excuses for having stayed out so long. Oh! how far too soon you have
returned, he said to himself.

They sat down to supper. They talked about the people who had been there
that day. Edward, full of love and ecstasy, spoke well of every
one--always sparing, often approving. Charlotte, who was not altogether
of his opinion, remarked this temper in him, and jested with him about
it--he who had always the sharpest thing to say on departed visitors,
was this evening so gentle and tolerant.

With fervor and heartfelt conviction, Edward cried, "One has only to
love a single creature with all one's heart, and the whole world at once
looks lovely!"

Ottilie dropped her eyes on the ground, and Charlotte looked straight
before her.

The Captain took up the word, and said, "It is the same with deep
feelings of respect and reverence: we first learn to recognize what
there is that is to be valued in the world, when we find occasion to
entertain such sentiments toward a particular object."

Charlotte made an excuse to retire early to her room where she could
give herself up to thinking over what had passed in the course of the
evening between herself and the Captain.

When Edward sprang on shore, and, pushing off the boat, had himself
committed his wife and his friend to the uncertain element, Charlotte
found herself face to face with the man on whose account she had been
already secretly suffering so bitterly, sitting in the twilight before
her, and sweeping along the boat with the sculls in easy motion. She
felt a depth of sadness, very rare with her, weighing on her spirits.
The undulating movement of the boat, the splash of the oars, the faint
breeze playing over the watery mirror, the sighing of the reeds, the
long flight of the birds, the fitful twinkling of the first stars--there
was something spectr