t guelder-rose
which he will have to bear with . . .

But, after all, it _is_ November for their hearts! Hers is chill as his;
she cannot live without him, as he cannot without her. If it were
winter, "she'd efface the score and forgive him _as before_" (thus we
perceive that this is not the first quarrel, that he has offended her
before with that word which was _not_ so many things!)--and what else is
it but winter for their shivering hearts? So he begins to hope. In
March, too, there are storms--here is one beginning now, at noon, which
shows that it will last. . . . Not yet, then, the too lovely spring!

"It is twelve o'clock:
I shall hear her knock
In the worst of a storm's uproar:
I shall pull her through the door,
I shall have her for evermore!"

. . . I think she came back. She would want to see how well he
understood the spring--he who could make that picture of the Pampas'
sheen and the wild horse. Why should spring's news unfold itself, and he
not "say things" about it to her, like those he could say about the mere
_Times_ news? And it _is_ impossible to bear with the guelder-rose--the
guelder-rose must be adored. They will adore it together; she will
efface the score, and forgive him as before. What fun it will be, in the
worst of the storm, to feel him pull her through the door!

In _The Lost Mistress_ it is really finished: she has dismissed him. We
are not told why. It cannot be because he has not loved her--he who so
tenderly, if so whimsically, accepts her decree. He will not let her see
how much he suffers--he still can say the "little things" she liked.

"All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;
One day more breaks them open fully
--You know the red turns grey."

That is what his life has turned, but he will not maunder about it.

"To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we--well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign."

He is no more "he" for her: he is a friend like the rest. _He_ resigns.
But the friends do not know what "he" knew.

"For each glance of the eye so bright and black
Though I keep with heart's endeavour--
Your voice, when you wish t