"Perhaps you will take Grandmamma, then?" whispered Caroline, archly. Lumley shrugged his shoulders, and replied in the same tone,-- "Yes,--provided you keep to the proverb, 'Les extremes se touchent,' and the lovely grandchild accompany the venerable grandmamma." "What would Evelyn say?" retorted Caroline. Lumley sighed, and made no answer. Mrs. Merton, who had hung fire while her daughter was carrying on this "aside," now put in,-- "Suppose I and Caroline take your _britzka_, and you go in our old coach with Evelyn and Mrs. Leslie?" Lumley looked delightedly at the speaker, and then glanced at Evelyn; but Mrs. Leslie said very gravely, "No, _we_ shall feel too much in leaving this dear place to be gay companions for Lord Vargrave. We shall all meet at dinner; or," she added, after a pause, "if this be uncourteous to Lord Vargrave, suppose Evelyn and myself take his carriage and, he accompanies you?" "Agreed," said Mrs. Merton, quietly; "and now I will just go and see about the strawberry-plants and slips--it was so kind in you, dear Lady Vargrave, to think of them." An hour had elapsed, and Evelyn was gone! She had left her maiden home, she had wept her last farewell on her mother's bosom, the sound of the carriage-wheels had died away; but still Lady Vargrave lingered on the threshold, still she gazed on the spot where the last glimpse of Evelyn had been caught. A sense of dreariness and solitude passed into her soul: the very sunlight, the spring, the songs of the birds, made loneliness more desolate. Mechanically, at last, she moved away, and with slow steps and downcast eyes passed through the favourite walk that led into the quiet burial-ground. The gate closed upon her, and now the lawn, the gardens, the haunts of Evelyn, were solitary as the desert itself; but the daisy opened to the sun, and the bee murmured along the blossoms, not the less blithely for the absence of all human life. In the bosom of Nature there beats no heart for man! BOOK II. "The hour arrived--years having rolled away When his return the Gods no more delay. Lo! Ithaca the Fates award; and there New trials meet the Wanderer." HOMER: _Od._ lib. i, 16. CHAPTER I. THERE is continual spring and harvest here-- Continual, both meeting at one time; For both the boughs do laughing blossoms bear, And with fresh colours deck the wanton prime; And eke at once the heavy trees they climb, Which seem to labour under their fruit's load. SPENSER: _The Garden of Adonis_. Vis boni In ipsa inesset forma.*--TERENCE. * "Even in beauty there exists the power of virtue."