immediately. What a strange and thrilling sensation it is
when we take up some long-dropped link in life, go back to some broken
thread of our existence, and try to attach it to the present! We feel
young again in the bygone, and yet far older even than our real age in
the thought of the changes time has wrought upon us in the meanwhile. A
week or so before I had looked with impatience for this meeting, and now
I grew very faint-hearted as the moment drew nigh. The only way I could
summon courage for the occasion was by thinking that in the mission
intrusted to me _I_ was actually nothing. There were incidents and
events not one of which touched me, and I should pass away off the scene
when our interview was over, and be no more remembered by her.

It was evident that the communication had engaged her attention to some
extent by the promptitude of her message to me; and with this thought I
crossed the little lawn, and rang the bell at the door.

"The gentleman expected by Miss Herbert, sir?" asked a smart English
maid. "Come this way, sir. She will see you in a few minutes."

I had fully ten minutes to inspect the details of a pretty little
drawing-room, one of those little female temples where scattered
drawings and books and music, and, above all, the delicious odor of
fresh flowers, all harmonize together, and set you a-thinking how easily
life could glide by with such appliances were they only set in motion
by the touch of the enchantress herself. The door opened at last, but it
was the maid; she came to say that Mrs. Keats was very poorly that day,
and Miss Herbert could not leave her at that moment; and if it were not
perfectly convenient to the gentleman to wait, she begged to know when
it would suit him to call again?

"As for me," said I, "I have come to Malta solely on this matter; pray
say that I will wait as long as she wishes. I am completely at her
orders."

I strolled out after this through one of the windows that opened on
the lawn, and, gaining the seaside, I sat down upon a rock to bide her
coming. I might have sat about half an hour thus, when I heard a rapid
step approaching, and I had just time to arise when Miss Herbert stood
before me. She started back, and grew pale, very pale, as she recognized
me, and for fully a minute there we both stood, unable to speak a word.

"Am I to understand, sir," said she, at last, "that you are the bearer
of this letter?" And she held it open towards me.

"Y