reverence. She did not kneel (for the forms of the religion in which she
had been reared were opposed to that posture of worship before the graven
image), but you could see in that countenance, eloquent at once with the
enthusiasm and the meekness of piety, that the soul was filled with the
memories and the hopes which, age after age, have consoled the sufferer
and inspired the martyr. The soul knelt to the idea, if the knee bowed
not to the image, embracing the tender grandeur of the sacrifice and the
vast inheritance opened to faith in the redemption.

The young man held his breath while he gazed. He was moved, and he was
awed. Slowly Helen turned towards him, and, smiling sweetly, held out to
him her hand. They seated themselves in silence in the depth of the
overhanging casement; and the mournful character of the scene without,
where dimly, through the misty rains, gloomed the dark foliage of the
cedars, made them insensibly draw closer to each other in the instinct of
love when the world frowns around it. Percival wanted the courage to say
that he had come to take farewell, though but for a day, and Helen spoke
first.

"I cannot guess why it is, Percival, but I am startled at the change I
feel in myself--no, not in health, dear Percival; I mean in mind--during
the last few months,--since, indeed, we have known each other. I
remember so well the morning in which my aunt's letter arrived at the
dear vicarage. We were returning from the village fair, and my good
guardian was smiling at my notions of the world. I was then so giddy and
light and thoughtless, everything presented itself to me in such gay
colours, I scarcely believed in sorrow. And now I feel as if I were
awakened to a truer sense of nature,--of the ends of our being here; I
seem to know that life is a grave and solemn thing. Yet I am not less
happy, Percival. No, I think rather that I knew not true happiness till