ng and
embowered roofs of the neighbouring village, or some woody hill studded
with a farmhouse, or a distant spire. As for Ferdinand, he strolled
along, full of beautiful thoughts and thrilling fancies, in a dreamy
state which had banished all recollection or consciousness but of the
present. He was happy; positively, perfectly, supremely happy. He was
happy for the first time in his life, He had no conception that life
could afford such bliss as now filled his being. What a chain of
miserable, tame, factitious sensations seemed the whole course of his
past existence. Even the joys of yesterday were nothing to these;
Armine was associated with too much of the commonplace and the gloomy
to realise the ideal in which he now revelled. But now all circumstances
contributed to enchant him. The novelty, the beauty of the scene,
harmoniously blended with his passion. The sun seemed to him a more
brilliant sun than the orb that illumined Armine; the sky more clear,
more pure, more odorous. There seemed a magic sympathy in the trees, and
every flower reminded him of his mistress. And then he looked around and
beheld her. Was he positively awake? Was he in England? Was he in the
same globe in which he had hitherto moved and acted? What was this
entrancing form that moved before him? Was it indeed a woman?

_O dea certe!_

That voice, too, now wilder than the wildest bird, now low and hushed,
yet always sweet; where was he, what did he listen to, what did he
behold, what did he feel? The presence of her father alone restrained
him from falling on his knees and expressing to her his adoration.

At length our friends arrived at a picturesque and ivy-grown cottage,
where the keeper, with their guns and dogs, awaited Mr. Temple and his
guest. Ferdinand, although a keen sportsman, beheld the spectacle with
dismay. He execrated, at the same time, the existence of partridges and
the invention of gunpowder. To resist his fate, however, was impossible;
he took his gun and turned to bid his hostess adieu.

'I do not like to quit Paradise at all,' he said in a low voice: 'must I
go?'

'Oh! certainly,' said Miss Temple. 'It will do you a great deal of
good.'

Never did anyone at first shoot more wildly. In time, however, Ferdinand
sufficiently rallied to recover his reputation with the keeper, who,
from his first observation, began to wink his eye to his son, an
attendant bush-beater, and occasionally even thrust his tongue insid