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exhausted; and that sad question was still trembling on her lip as she sank into an uneasy slumber.

She awoke before dawn, and seemed never to have ceased from questioning herself. Somehow her present kind of existence had grown intolerable to her, and she felt as if she had not even the consolation of being essential to the happiness of those around her. She thought of her mother's invectives, and of Mordaunt's

labours for her support. but she was not his all.

True, he loved her, There was some one

She

dearer still. All ties must be dwarfed in that. The day broke, and she watched it earnestly as she lay there; much as she had been wont to do when she was a child, and longed for the morning and the sunshine, that she might jump out and carol like the lark herself. looked now on many of the same familiar features of the country which had always met her eyes at Whitefield in those happy bygone years, so near, and yet so far away. Tender thoughts of her dead father gathered in her heart, and renewed in her an of late often recurring desire to see the home of her childhood once more. In all her visits to Carisbroke and the Heath she had never looked

again on Whitefield, and yet the Heath shrubberies joined it. Should she attempt it now alone? It was early, few would be stirring to remark her. Sir Mark himself had gone away for some days, so she would not fear encountering him.

The sun was peering forth-it promised to be a clear, bright, frosty day-there would be no clouds to darken her impressions of that dear home.

'I was so happy there, and innocent and good, and my father and Mordaunt loved me dearly there. Oh! but to look on it again.'

It was pleasant to cool her cheek in the fresh morning air, and to hear the crisp frost crackle beneath her light tread as she hurried round the lawn and dived into the shrubbery. The path led gradually downward, opening at length upon the iron fence, the well-known paddock and banks, and sloping flower-garden of Whitefield. Eve stopped at the fence and gazed, dazzled at first by blinding tears and the sunshine, which glittered on the white sprays of the trees and the silvered blades of grass. Yes, there lay the house, improved and altered a little, but not much; not enough to change its identity with the sweet picture in She leaned against the trunk of

her memory.

a laburnum-tree, whose long pendant boughs scattered ice-drops over her, as they had once shed golden blossoms. With the strange recollection of minutia which haunts us from early youth, she bethought herself of the garlands with which Dauntless dressed her, and how he called her the May Queen, and how he mounted Sultan and rode away to Jane and Carisbroke, leaving her behind in tears.

There were sorrows even then,' she said gently, but aloud.

'There must be sorrows always,' responded a voice, which brought the blood burning into her cheek and brow; but you cannot have many associated with Whitefield.'

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'No,' she answered, in broken tones; 'I was very happy in this home.'

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Could you not be so again? Oh! Eve, Eve one little word, and it shall be your home once more !' She looked up in his face wildly, and tried to ask something-he thought it was 'How?'

'As my wife, Eve, as my wife-there is no home for me where you are not.'

Heavily she leaned against the laburnumtree, gazing on the house, and on the clear, bright heaven, and asking herself if it were a

dream. It looked all real; she felt the keen air on her forehead-there was nothing strange but the expression of the face into which she had glanced, and the low, passionate voice which had spoken.

'What can I do?' the old question, rose to her lips; and then that voice spoke again, and told her how precious her love would be to him. It was nothing to others, but it was everything to him; blest as he was by all the world could give, her love outweighed the whole. There was one she could make happy. 'Eve, shall Whitefield be your home again?' And as he bent down to that little, shrinking figure, he caught the whispered 'Yes.'

CHAPTER VII.

Oh! that our lives, which flee so fast,

In purity were such,

That not an image of the past

Should fear that pencil's touch!

WORDSWORTH.

HE visit to Wales is over, not altogether

THE

to Mr. Sackville's dissatisfaction, although he has admired the scenery with the utmost zest, and botanized and gathered geological specimens, and sketched with unwearied ardour; although he likes his hostess, and is delighted to trace the returning hues of health on Mordaunt's cheek. Still the sketches and specimens are in a manner valueless until Susan has seen and approved of them. He is rather mortified to find what a blank there is in his life without her, notwithstanding the indubitable fact that so many years of that life were passed in solitude. Good Mrs. Philipson looks with a smile upon the almost boyish eagerness with which he gathers together his possessions, and takes them away to be packed, or ponders

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