but I . . . I can only say that if his oath 's worth having, I
. . . and I think you too, my dear, if you . . . but it's no use
anticipating. I shall stand out for your honour and happiness. There,
your cheeks are flushed. Go and sleep.'

Some idle tale! Cecilia murmured to herself a dozen times, undisturbed by
the recurrence of it. Nevil was coming to speak to her father tomorrow!
Adieu to doubt and division! Happy to-morrow! and dear Mount Laurels! The
primroses were still fair in the woods: and soon the cowslips would come,
and the nightingale; she lay lapt in images of everything innocently
pleasing to Nevil. Soon the Esperanza would be spreading wings. She
revelled in a picture of the yacht on a tumbling Mediterranean Sea,
meditating on the two specks near the tiller,--who were blissful human
creatures, blest by heaven and in themselves--with luxurious Olympian
benevolence.

For all that, she awoke, starting up in the first cold circle of
twilight, her heart in violent action. She had dreamed that the vessel
was wrecked. 'I did not think myself so cowardly,' she said aloud,
pressing her side and then, with the dream in her eyes, she gasped: 'It
would be together!'

Strangely chilled, she tried to recover some fallen load. The birds of
the dawn twittered, chirped, dived aslant her window, fluttered back.
Instead of a fallen load, she fancied presently that it was an
expectation she was desiring to realize: but what? What could be expected
at that hour? She quitted her bed, and paced up and down the room beneath
a gold-starred ceiling. Her expectation, she resolved to think, was of a
splendid day of the young Spring at Mount Laurels--a day to praise to
Nevil.

She raised her window-blind at a window letting in sweet air, to gather
indications of promising weather. Her lover stood on the grass-plot among
the flower-beds below, looking up, as though it had been his expectation
to see her which had drawn her to gaze out with an idea of some
expectation of her own. So visionary was his figure in the grey
solitariness of the moveless morning that she stared at the apparition,
scarce putting faith in him as man, until he kissed his hand to her, and
had softly called her name.

Impulsively she waved a hand from her lips.

Now there was no retreat for either of them!

She awoke to this conviction after a flight of blushes that burnt her
thoughts to ashes as they sprang. Thoughts born blushing, all of the
crimson co