the solemn shadows of the trees, yet often gladdened with bright
sunshine. It was built of white marble, with slender and graceful
pillars, supporting a vaulted dome; and beneath the centre of this
dome, upon a pedestal, was a slab of dark-veined marble, on which
books and music might be strewn. But there was a fantasy among the
people of the neighborhood, that the edifice was planned after an
ancient mausoleum, and was intended for a tomb, and that the central
slab of dark-veined marble was to be inscribed with the names of
buried ones. They doubted, too, whether the form of Lilias Fay could
appertain to a creature of this earth, being so very delicate, and
growing every day more fragile, so that she looked as if the summer
breeze should snatch her up, and waft her heavenward. But still she
watched the daily growth of the Temple; and so did old Walter
Gascoigne, who now made that spot his continual haunt, leaning whole
hours together on his staff, and giving as deep attention to the work
as though it had been indeed a tomb. In due time it was finished, and
a day appointed for a simple rite of dedication.

On the preceding evening, after Adam Forrester had taken leave of his
mistress, he looked back towards the portal of her dwelling, and felt
a strange thrill of fear; for be imagined that, as the setting
sunbeams faded from her figure, she was exhaling away, and that
something of her ethereal substance was withdrawn, with each lessening
gleam of light. With his farewell glance, a shadow had fallen over
the portal, and Lilias was invisible. His foreboding spirit deemed it
an omen at the time; and so it proved; for the sweet earthly form, by
which the Lily bad been manifested to the world, was found lifeless,
the next morning, in the Temple, with her head resting on her arms,
which were folded upon the slab of dark-veined marble. The chill
winds of the earth had long since breathed a blight into this