ugh they had arranged to journey back to London the following day,
the woods and gardens looked so fair, the peace of that house was so
great, that they lingered there till Wednesday. Brigit was unusually
silent. She sat for hours at the library window looking across the
Channel toward France, her countenance drawn and white, all its
loveliness departed.

Once she spoke--

"I know that Robert is in sorrow."

"Are you anxious? Shall I write?" asked Pensee, secretly troubled also.

"No, I am not anxious. There is sorrow, but I am not anxious."

Her room adjoined Pensee's, and, in the night, Pensee, sleepless, heard
her walking to and fro, with even steps, till sunrise. When they met in
the morning, Brigit seemed to have aged by ten years. Her youth
returned, but the character of her face had altered for ever. She was
never called pretty again. It was said that she varied and depended
wholly on her moods. She could make herself anything, but nature had
given her little more than a pair of eyes, a nose, and a
mouth--indifferent good. Lady Fitz Rewes was appalled at the
transformation. Remembering stories of the last dreadful touches of
consumption, she feared for the girl's health. "She will die before
long," she thought. But death can occur more than once in one life. The
passing away of every strong emotion means a burial and a grave, a
change, and a resurrection. The tearful, dusty, fiery, airy process must
be endured seventy times seven and more, and more again--from
everlasting to everlasting. And the cause is nothing, the motives are
nothing, the great, great affliction and the child's little woe pass
alike through the Process--for the Process belongs to the eternal law,
whereas the rest is of the heart's capacity.

The way to the city--through the beautiful south of England, beautiful
at all seasons of the year and sad also at all seasons--brought
something which resembled calm to both their minds. Dwellings closely
packed together destroy, or disturb, the finer vision of the grandeur,
sternness, and depth of life. At Catesby, the solitude and the waves
exercised their power over the spirit, diverting it from trivial
speculations to awe and wonder. There, where the unseen could move
freely and the invisible manifest itself on the perpetual rocks, the
towering trees, the still green fields, and the vast acres of the sea,
one could hear the dreaming prophet proclaim the burden of the Lord; and
the voice of mirth