where, with beating heart
and crimson cheek, she had first breathed out in broken music the
acknowledgment of her love; there had another stolen meeting, a thousand
times the sweeter for being stolen, taken place. Every spot, in fact,
was dear to him, and every object associated itself with delightful
emotions that kindled new life in a spirit from which their parent
affections had not yet passed away.

Denis now sought the only other place where he had any likelihood of
meeting her: this was at the well below her father's house. He walked
down along the banks of the little stream that ran past it, until he
reached a thorn bush that grew within a few yards of the spring. Under
this he sat, anxiously hoping that Susan might come to fill her evening
pail, as he knew she was wont to do. A thick flowery branch of the
hawthorn, for it was the latter end of May, hung down from the trunk,
and served as a screen through which he could observe her should she
appear, without being visible himself.

It was now the hour of twilight; the evening was warm and balmy; the
whitethorn tinder which he sat, and the profusion of wild flowers that
spangled the bosom of the green glen, breathed their fragrance around
him, and steeped, the emotions and remembrances which crowded thickly
on him in deep and exquisite tenderness. Up in the air he heard the
quavering hum of the snipe, as it rose and fell in undulating motion,
and the creak of the rail in many directions around him. From an
adjoining meadow in the distance, the merry voices of the village
children came upon his ear, as they gathered the wild honey which
dropped like dew from the soft clouds upon the long grassy stalks, and
meadow-sweet, on whose leaves it lay like amber. He remembered when
he and Susan, on meeting there for a similar purpose, felt the first
mysterious pleasure in being together, and the unaccountable melancholy
produced by separation and absence.

At length he heard a footstep; but he could not persuade himself that
the slow and lingering tread of the person approaching him was that
of Susan, so much did it differ from the buoyant and elastic step with
which she used to trip along. On looking through the branches, however,
he perceived her coming towards him, carrying the pitcher as usual in
her hand. The blood was already careering at full speed through his
veins, and the palpitations of his heart were loud enough to be heard by
the ear.

Oh, beauty, beauty!