“If--not a likely matter--anything occurs worth mention, you shall have a line from me from Venice.” “When he had concluded his letter, he extinguished his candles, and sat down at the open window. The moon had gone down, and, though star-lit, the night was dark. The window in the other wing of the villa, at which he had seen the figure through the curtain, was now thrown open, and he could see that Florence, with a shawl wrapped round her, was leaning out, and talking to some one in the garden underneath. “It is the first time,” said a voice he knew to Emily’s, “that I ever made a bouquet in the dark.” “Come up, Milly dearest; the dew is falling heavily. I feel it even here.” “I’ll just fasten this rose I have here in his hat; he saw it in my hair to-night, and he’ll remember it.” She left the garden, the window was closed. The light was put out, and all was silent. CHAPTER XV. SISTERS’ CONFIDENCES. THE day of Calvert’s departure was a very sad one at the villa; so was the next and the next! It is impossible to repeat the routine of a quiet life when we have lost one whose pleasant companionship imparted to the hours a something of his own identity, without feeling the dreary blank his absence leaves, and, together with this, comes the not very flattering conviction of how little of our enjoyment we owed to our own efforts, and how much to his. “I never thought we should have missed him so much,” said Emily as she sat with her sister beside the lake, where the oars lay along the boats unused, and the fishing-net hung to dry from the branches of the mulberry-tree. “Of course we miss him,” said Florence peevishly. “You don’t live in daily, hourly intercourse with a person without feeling his absence; but I almost think it is a relief,” said she, slightly flushing. “A relief, Florry! And in what way?” “I don’t know; that is, I’m not disposed to go into a nice analysis of Mr. Calvert’s mind, and the effect produced upon my own, by the mere iteration of things I never agreed with. Besides, I don’t want in the least to limit your regrets for him. He was one of your favourites.” “I always thought him more a favourite of yours than mine, Florry.” “Then I suspect you made a great mistake; but really, I think we might talk of something else. What about those hyacinths; didn’t you tell me they ought to be moved?” “Yes, Harry said they had too much sun there, and were losing colour in consequence.” “I can’t imagine him a great authority in gardening.” “Well, but he really knew a great deal about it, and had an exquisite taste in the landscape part of it; witness that little plat under your window.” “The fuchsias are pretty,” said she, with a saucy air. “Isn’t the post late to-day?” “It came two hours ago. Don’t you remember my saying there were no letters, except two for Harry?” “And where are you to forward them to him? Has he been confidential enough to tell you?”