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The wavering of her mind was visible in her tell-tale face He noticed it, and caught at the opportunity

They were standing by the ruinous foundations of an old rown stonework--the only signs of led down from the old millpond to a lower level, under the cloak of rank broad leaves--the sensuous natures of the vegetable world On the right hand the sun, resting on the horizon-line, strearound from below copper-coloured and lilac clouds, stretched out in flats beneath a sky of pale soft green All dark objects on the earth that lay towards the sun were overspread by a purple haze, against which a swar upward and floating away like sparks of fire

The stillness oppressed and reduced her to mere passivity The only wish the humidity of the place left in her was to stand ave her, as it gives all such temperaments, a sense of bare equality with, and no superiority to, a single entity under the sky

He came so close that their clothes touched 'Will you try to loveher hand He had never taken it before She could feel his hand tre his kindness to her brother, his love for herself, and Edward's fickleness, ought she to forbid him to do this? How truly pitiful it was to feel his hand tremble so--all for her! Should she withdraw her hand? She would think whether she would Thinking, and hesitating, she looked as far as the auturound would allow her to see distinctly There was the fragarden'--standing in the , purposeless and valueless It was overgrown, and choked with mandrakes, and she could almost fancy she heard their shrieks

Should she withdraw her hand? No, she could not withdraw it now; it was too late, the act would not i with closed eyes down a river--she knew not whither

He gave her hand a gentle pressure, and relinquished it

Then it seeoing to urge his suit that evening Another respite

7 THE EARLY PART OF SEPTEMBER Saturday cae post-office It was a little grey cottage with a luxuriant jas in Cytherea paused to ad a step on the gravel behind the corner of the house, she resigned the jasmine and entered Nobody was in the room She could hear Mrs Leat, the ho acted as post about over her head