ship--how she had stolen away from
home each pleasant evening to meet him, and with what feeble
excuses--and the like. As the shades of afternoon deepened and shut out
from sight the gilded cornices and costly frescoes, and all else that
could remind them of present wealth, and as, each instant, their
thoughts buried themselves still further in the memories of the past, it
seemed to them, at last, as though they were again wandering hand in
hand upon the beach, or sitting upon the wave-washed rock at Cato's
Point.

With something wanting, however. No force of illusion could bring back
to either of them, in all its former completeness, that sense of mutual
interest which had once absorbed them. Whatever dreams of the past
might, for the moment, blind their perceptions, there was still the
ever-present consciousness of now standing in another and far different
relation to each other. Though AEnone musingly gazed upon his face and
listened to his voice, until the realities of the present seemed to
shrink away, and the fancies of other years stole softly back, and, with
involuntary action, her hand gently toyed with his curls and parted them
one side, as she had once been accustomed to do, it was with no love for
him that she did it now. He was only her friend--her brother. He had
been kind to her, and perhaps, if necessary, she might even now consent
to die for him; but, with all that, he was no longer the idol of her
heart. Another had taken that place, and, however unworthy to hold it,
could not now be dispossessed. And though Cleotos, likewise, as he
looked at her and felt the gentle pressure of her hand upon his
forehead, seemed as though transported into the past, until he saw no
longer the matron in the full bloom of womanhood, but only the young
girl sparkling with the fresh hue and sunshine of early youth, yet to
him still clung the perception that there was a barrier between them.
What though the form of the treacherous Leta may then have faded from
his memory as completely as though he had never seen her? What though.
AEnone's pleasant and sympathetic tones may have again melted into his
heart as warmly as when first whispered at Ostia? The smile upon her
face--the winning intonation of her voice--all might seem the same; but
he knew that he must bide within his own heart all that he had thus felt
anew, and be content with the offered friendship alone, for that not
merely her duty but her altered inclination had