e thought that life, as you said so well, 'never dies;' well, yes,
then I can conceive that the mourner would yearn to have a glimpse of
the vanished one, were it but to ask the sole and only question he could
desire to put, 'Art thou happy? May I hope that we shall meet again,
never to part,--never?'"

Kenelm's voice trembled as he spoke, tears stood in his eyes. A
melancholy--vague, unaccountable, overpowering--passed across his heart,
as the shadow of some dark-winged bird passes over a quiet stream.

"You have never yet felt this?" asked Lily doubtingly, in a soft voice,
full of tender pity, stopping short and looking into his face.

"I? No. I have never yet lost one whom I so loved and so yearned to see
again. I was but thinking that such losses may befall us all ere we too
vanish out of sight."

"Lily!" called forth Mrs. Cameron, halting at the gate of the
burial-ground.

"Yes, auntie?"

"Mr. Emlyn wants to know how far you have got in 'Numa Pompilius.' Come
and answer for yourself."

"Oh, those tiresome grown-up people!" whispered Lily, petulantly, to
Kenelm. "I do like Mr. Emlyn; he is one of the very best of men. But
still he is grown up, and his 'Numa Pompilius' is so stupid."

"My first French lesson-book. No, it is not stupid. Read on. It has
hints of the prettiest fairy tale I know, and of the fairy in especial
who bewitched my fancies as a boy."

By this time they had gained the gate of the burial-ground.

"What fairy tale? what fairy?" asked Lily, speaking quickly.

"She was a fairy, though in heathen language she is called a
nymph,--Egeria. She was the link between men and gods to him she loved;
she belongs to the race of gods. True, she, too, may vanish, but she can
never die."

"Well, Miss Lily," said the vicar, "and how far in the book I lent
you,--'Numa Pompilius.'"

"Ask me this day next week."

"I will; but mind you are to translate as you go on. I must see the
translation."

"Very well. I will do my best," answered Lily meekly. Lily now walked
by the vicar's side, and Kenelm by Mrs. Cameron's, till they reached
Grasmere.

"I will go on with you to the bridge, Mr. Chillingly," said the vicar,
when the ladies had disappeared within their garden. "We had little
time to look over my books, and, by the by, I hope you at least took the
Juvenal."

"No, Mr. Emlyn; who can quit your house with an inclination for satire?
I must come some morning and select a volume from those works wh