forgetfulness, were now all needless; she could trust it with God, to be
restored to her in his eternal present, its lustre undimmed, and no trait
missing.

The laying aside of her mourning garb was but one indication of the
change that had come over her.

The whole household, from scullion to coachman, caught the inspiration of
her brighter mood. The servants laughed aloud about the house. The
children of the gardener, ever before banished to other parts of the
grounds, played unrebuked in the sacred street of the silent village.

As for Paul, since the revelation had come to him that the lady of his
love was no mere dream of a life for ever vanished, but was herself alive
for evermore, and that he should one day meet her, his love had assumed a
colour and a reality it had never possessed before. To him this meant all
it would have meant to the lover of a material maiden, to be admitted to
her immediate society.

The sense of her presence in the village imparted to the very air a fine
quality of intoxication. The place was her shrine, and he lived in it as
in a sanctuary.

It was not as if he should have to wait many years, till death, before he
should see her. As soon as he gave place to the later self which was to
succeed him, he should be with her. Already his boyish self had no doubt
greeted her, and she had taken in her arms the baby Paul who had held his
little arms out to her picture twenty years before.

To be in love with the spirit of a girl, however beautiful she might have