Chapter V.

The soul, my lord, is fashioned--like the lyre.
Strike one chord suddenly, and others vibrate.
Your name abruptly mentioned, casual words
Of comment on your deeds, praise from your uncle,
News from the armies, talk of your return,
A word let fall touching your youthful passion,
Suffused her cheek, call'd to her drooping eye
A momentary lustre, made her pulse
Leap headlong, and her bosom palpitate.

Hillhouse.

The approach of night, at sea and in a wilderness, has always something
more solemn in it, than on land in the centre of civilization. As the
curtain is drawn before his eyes, the solitude of the mariner is
increased, while even his sleepless vigilance seems, in a measure,
baffled, by the manner in which he is cut off from the signs of the
hour. Thus, too, in the forest, or in an isolated clearing, the
mysteries of the woods are deepened, and danger is robbed of its
forethought and customary guards. That evening, Major Willoughby stood
at a window with an arm round the slender waist of Beulah, Maud
standing a little aloof; and, as the twilight retired, leaving the
shadows of evening to thicken on the forest that lay within a few
hundred feet of that side of the Hut, and casting a gloom over the
whole of the quiet solitude, he felt the force of the feeling just
mentioned, in a degree he had never before experienced.