some poet hath it,

"Like a still embrace,"

"Now tell me as much as you can about yourself."

At first there seemed nothing to tell; but gradually he drew from
Hilary a good deal. Johanna's feeble health, which caused her
continuing to teach to be very unadvisable; and the gradual
diminishing of the school--from what cause they could not
account--which made it very doubtful whether some change would not
soon or late be necessary.

What this change should be she and Mr. Lyon discussed a little--as
far as in the utterly indefinite position of affairs was possible.
Also, from some other questions of his, she spoke to him about
another dread which had lurked in her mind, and yet to which she
could give no tangible shape, about Ascott. He could not remove it,
he did not attempt; but he soothed it a little, advising with her as
to the best way of managing the willful lad. His strong, clear sense,
just judgment, and, above all, a certain unspoken sense of union, as
if all that concerned her and hers he took naturally upon himself as
his own, gave Hilary such comfort that, even on this night, with a
full consciousness of all that was to follow, she was happy--nay, she
had not been so happy for years. Perhaps (let the truth be told), the
glorious truth of true love, that its recognition, spoken or silent,
constitutes the only perfect joy of life that of two made perhaps she
had never been so really happy since she was born.

The last thing he did was to make her give him an assurance that in