sive to a bugle. So she led for some months a very
pleasant idyllic life, face to face with a strong, vivid memory, which
gave everything and asked nothing. These were doubtless to be (and she
half knew it) the happiest days of her life. Has life any bliss so great
as this pensive ecstasy? To know that the golden sands are dropping one
by one makes servitude freedom, and poverty riches.

In spite of a certain sense of loss, Lizzie passed a very blissful
summer. She enjoyed the deep repose which, it is to be hoped, sanctifies
all honest betrothals. Possible calamity weighed lightly upon her. We
know that when the columns of battle-smoke leave the field, they journey
through the heavy air to a thousand quiet homes, and play about the
crackling blaze of as many firesides. But Lizzie's vision was never
clouded. Mrs. Ford might gaze into the thickening summer dusk and wipe
her spectacles; but her companion hummed her old ballad-ends with an
unbroken voice. She no more ceased to smile under evil tidings than the
brooklet ceases to ripple beneath the projected shadow of the roadside
willow. The self-given promises of that tearful night of parting were
forgotten. Vigilance had no place in Lizzie's scheme of heavenly
idleness. The idea of moralizing in Elysium!

It must not be supposed that Mrs. Ford was indifferent to Lizzie's mood.
She studied it watchfully, and kept note of all its variations. And
among the things she learned was, that her companion knew of her
scrutiny, and was, on the whole, indifferent to it. Of the full extent
of Mrs. Ford's observation, however, I think Lizzie was hardly aware.
She was like a reveller in a brilliantly lighted room, with a
curtainless window, conscious, and yet heedless, of passers-by. And Mrs.
Ford may not inaptly be compared to the chilly spectator on the dark
side of the pane. Very few words passed on the topic of their common
thoughts. From the first, as we have seen, Lizzie guessed at her
guardian's probable view of her engagement: an abasement incurred by
John. Lizzie lacked what is called a sense of duty; and, unlike the
majority of such temperaments, which contrive to be buoyant on the
glistening bubble of Dignity, she had likewise a modest estimate of her
dues. Alack, my poor heroine had no pride! Mrs. Ford's silent censure
awakened no resentment. It sounded in her ears like a dull, soporific
hum. Lizzie was deeply enamored of what a French book terms her _aises
intellectuelles_