ip's transport in learning it, they did go
back, again and again, into the past; and many a glance did they cast
into the future. There was no end to their revelations of the
circumstances of the last two months, and of the interior history which
belonged to them. At last, the burning out of one of the candles
startled them into a recollection of how long their conversation had
lasted, and of the suspense in which Edward and Hester had been kept.
Enderby offered to go and tell them the fact which they must be
anticipating: and, after having agreed that no one else should know at
present--that Miss Bruce's name should be allowed to die out of
Deerbrook speculations, for Mrs Rowland's sake, before any other was
put in its place, Philip left his Margaret, and went into the
breakfast-room, where his presence was not wholly unexpected.

In five minutes, Margaret heard the hall door shut, and, in another
moment, her brother and sister came to her. Hester's face was all
smiles and tears: her mind all tumult with the vivid recollection of her
own first hours of happy hopeful love, mingled with the griefs which
always lay heavy within her, and with that warm attachment to her sister
which circumstances occasionally exalted into a passion.

"We ought to rejoice with nothing but joy, Margaret," said she: "but I
cannot see how we are to spare you. I do not believe I can live without
you."

Her husband started at this echo of the thoughts for which he was at the
moment painfully rebuking himself. He had nothing to say; but gave his
greeting in a brotherly kiss, like that which he had offered on his
marriage with her sister, and on his entrance upon his home.

"How quiet, how very quiet she is!" exclaimed Hester, an Margaret left
the room, after a few words on the events of the evening, and a calm
good-night. "I hope it is all right. I hope she is quite satisfied."

"Satisfied is the word," said her husband. "People are quiet when they
are relieved--calm when they are satisfied--people like Margaret. It is
only great minds, I believe, which feel real satisfaction."

Hester gave him pain by a deep sigh. She was thinking how seldom, and
for how short a time, she had ever felt real satisfaction.

"And how often, and for how long," she asked, "do great minds find
themselves in that heaven?"

"By the blessing of God, not seldom, I trust," replied he; "though not
so often as, by obeying their nature, they might. Intellec