while her mamma looked complacently on, and abstractedly devoured a
sandwich. It was at this time, in the general pause, that Clifford and
Lucy found themselves--Heaven knows how!--next to each other, and at a
sufficient distance from the squire and the rest of the party to feel in
some measure alone. There was a silence in both which neither dared to
break; when Lucy, after looking at and toying with a flower that she had
brought from the place which the party had been to see, accidentally
dropped it; and Clifford and herself stooping at the same moment to
recover it, their hands met. Involuntarily, Clifford detained the soft
fingers in his own; his eyes, that encountered hers, so spell-bound and
arrested them that for once they did not sink beneath his gaze; his lips
moved, but many and vehement emotions so suffocated his voice that no
sound escaped them. But all the heart was in the eyes of each; that
moment fixed their destinies. Henceforth there was an era from which
they dated a new existence; a nucleus around which their thoughts, their
remembrances, and their passions clung. The great gulf was passed; they
stood on the same shore, and felt that though still apart and disunited,
on that shore was no living creature but themselves! Meanwhile Augustus
Tomlinson, on finding himself surrounded by persons eager to gaze and to
listen, broke from his moodiness and reserve. Looking full at his next
neighbour, and flourishing his right hand in the air, till he suffered it
to rest in the direction of the houses and chimneys below, he repeated
that moral exclamation which had been wasted on Clifford, with a more
solemn and a less passionate gravity than before,--"What a subject,
ma'am, for contemplation!"

"Very sensibly said, indeed, sir," said the lady addressed, who was
rather of a serious turn.

"I never," resumed Augustus in a louder key, and looking round for