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The afternoon drew on The packing was done Cytherea was so restless that she could stay still nowhere Miss Aldclyffe, who, though she took little part in the day's proceedings, was, as it were, instinctively conscious of all their itation for once as the natural result of the novel event, and Manston hith Cytherea wandered alone into the conservatory When in it, she thought she would run across to the hot-house in the outer garden, having in her heart a whimsical desire that she should also like to take a last look at the familiar flowers and luxuriant leaves collected there She pulled on a pair of overshoes, and thither she went Not a soul was in or around the place The gardener wasenerous spirit derives froreater than the priht 'How happy they are!' and the thought -house again, she was on the point of returning indoors, when a feeling that these moments of solitude would be her last of freedo the the wintry aspect of the curly-leaved plants, the straw-covered beds, and the bare fruit-trees around her

The garden, no part of which was visible from the house, sloped down to a narrow river at the foot, dividing it fro the public path on the other side of the river; she fancied she knew the form Her resolutions, taken in the presence of Owen, did not fail her now She hoped and prayed that it ht not be one who had stolen her heart away, and still kept it Why should he have reappeared at all, when he had declared that he went out of her sight for ever?

She hastily hid herself, in the lowest corner of the garden close to the river A large dead tree, thickly robed in ivy, had been considerably depressed by its icy load of thelow over the stream, which here ran slow and deep The tree screened her from the eyes of any passer on the other side

She waited timidly, and her timidity increased She would not allow herself to see him--she would hear him pass, and then look to see if it had been Edward

But, before she heard anything, she became aware of an object reflected in the water fro over the river in such a way that, though hiding the actual path, and objects upon it, it perhs