moment; and I spoke as one who felt his life was in his words.

"Lord Rainsforth looked at me, when I had done, with a countenance full
of affection, but it was not cheerful.

"'My dear Caxton,' said he, tremulously, 'I own that I once wished
this,--wished it from the hour I knew you; but why did you so long--I
never suspected that--nor, I am sure, did Ellinor.' He stopped short,
and added quickly: 'However, go and speak, as you have spoken to me, to
Ellinor. Go; it may not yet be too late. And yet--but go.'

"Too late!'--what meant those words? Lord Rainsforth had turned hastily
down another walk, and left me alone, to ponder over an answer which
concealed a riddle. Slowly I took my way towards the house and sought
Lady Ellinor, half hoping, half dreading to find her alone. There was a
little room communicating with a conservatory, where she usually sat in
the morning. Thither I took my course. "That room,--I see it still!--
the walls covered with pictures from her own hand, many were sketches of
the haunts we had visited together; the simple ornaments, womanly but
not effeminate; the very books on the table, that had been made familiar
by dear associations. Yes, there the Tasso, in which we had read
together the episode of Clorinda; there the Aeschylus in which I
translated to her the "Prometheus." Pedantries these might seem to
some, pedantries, perhaps, they were; but they were proofs of that
congeniality which had knit the man of books to the daughter of the
world. That room, it was the home of my heart.

"Such, in my vanity of spirit, methought would be the air round a home
to come. I looked about me, troubled and confused, and, halting
timidly, I saw Ellinor before me, leaning her face on her hand, her