Vane. The different objects that
caught the gaze of each was emblematic both of the different channel of
their thoughts and the different elements of their nature: he thought of
the sorrow, she of the consolation; his heart prophesied of the passing
away from earth, hers of the ascension into heaven. The lower part of
the landscape was wrapped in shade; but just where the bank curved round
in a mimic bay, the waters caught the sun's parting smile, and rippled
against the herbage that clothed the shore, with a scarcely noticeable
wave. There are two of the numerous mills which are so picturesque a
feature of that country, standing at a distance from each other on the
rising banks, their sails perfectly still in the cool silence of the
evening, and adding to the rustic tranquillity which breathed around.
For to me there is something in the still sails of one of those
inventions of man's industry peculiarly eloquent of repose: the rest
seems typical of the repose of our own passions, short and uncertain,
contrary to their natural ordination; and doubly impressive from the
feeling which admonishes us how precarious is the stillness, how utterly
dependent on every wind rising at any moment and from any quarter of
the heavens! They saw before them no living forms, save of one or two
peasants yet lingering by the water-side.

Trevylyan drew closer to his Gertrude; for his love was inexpressibly
tender, and his vigilant anxiety for her made his stern frame feel the
first coolness of the evening even before she felt it herself.

"Dearest, let me draw your mantle closer round you."

Gertrude smiled her thanks.

"I feel better than I have done for weeks," said she; "and when once we
get into the Rhine, you will see me grow so strong as to shock all your
interest for me."

"Ah, would to Heaven my interest for you may be put to such an ordeal!"
said Trevylyan; and they turned slowly to the inn, where Gertrude's
father already awaited them.

Trevylyan was of a wild, a resolute, and an active nature. Thrown on
the world at the age of sixteen, he had passed his youth in alternate
pleasure, travel, and solitary study. At the age in which manhood is
least susceptible to caprice, and most perhaps to passion, he fell in
love with the loveliest person that ever dawned upon a poet's vision.
I say this without exaggeration, for Gertrude Vane's was indeed
the beauty, but the perishable beauty, of a dream. It happened most
singularly to