the paper,--it was not to be read in a happy mood.

Once he asked Rose to walk with him on the hilltop.

"Why, what a path you have worn here, Septimius!" said the girl. "You walk
miles and miles on this one spot, and get no farther on than when you
started. That is strange walking!"

"I don't know, Rose; I sometimes think I get a little onward. But it is
sweeter--yes, much sweeter, I find--to have you walking on this path here
than to be treading it alone."

"I am glad of that," said Rose; "for sometimes, when I look up here, and
see you through the branches, with your head bent down, and your hands
clasped behind you, treading, treading, treading, always in one way, I
wonder whether I am at all in your mind. I don't think, Septimius," added
she, looking up in his face and smiling, "that ever a girl had just such a
young man for a lover."

"No young man ever had such a girl, I am sure," said Septimius; "so sweet,
so good for him, so prolific of good influences!"

"Ah, it makes me think well of myself to bring such a smile into your face!
But, Septimius, what is this little hillock here so close to our path?
Have you heaped it up here for a seat? Shall we sit down upon it for an
instant?--for it makes me more tired to walk backward and forward on one
path than to go straight forward a much longer distance."

"Well; but we will not sit down on this hillock," said Septimius, drawing
her away from it. "Farther out this way, if you please, Rose, where we