He turned again to the piano; Arthur quitted the room; Lynn gazed out of the window, with working features; Carry shaded her eyes with her hand; Ida felt a cold awe creeping over her. 'Death and Eternity!' had she heard the words before? how out of place in the bright warm life they were leading! Here were true friendships, tried and strengthened by years; young love, joying in his flowery course; refined and congenial spirits; the luxuries of wealth and taste;--how unwelcome the hand that lifted the drapery which enveloped the skeleton! 'Death and Eternity!' The spell was upon the scented air; the moon threw shadows upon the grass, as of newly heaped graves; and the vibrating cords spoke but of the one awful theme! CHAPTER X. "Our last ride--can it be!" said Lynn, when the horses were brought to the gate, early in a September afternoon. Ida smiled faintly. The parting of the morrow, was, to her, the death of a summer's day, to be succeeded by wintry darkness. Not even Carry knew how the prospect oppressed her. Lynn saw that his remark was injudicious, and endeavoured to atone for it, by the most delicate assiduity of attention. Their liking had matured into an attachment, which might have been predicated upon their consonance of feeling and sentiment. Her calmer judgment gave her the ascendancy, which belonged of right, to the masculine mind; he did not look up--she could not have respected him if he had; but he consulted and appealed to her, as a brother would ask counsel of an elder sister. She learned to imitate Charley, in curbing his impetuosity; and he chafed less at her soft touch upon the rein. No bantering checked the growth of their friendship; they were, for the time, members of one family; Lynn and Charley were no more to the disengaged young lady than Arthur. Their excursion was to a splendid mansion, fifteen miles from Poplar-grove, lately completed, and not yet occupied by a wealthy landed proprietor, the Croesus of the county. Arthur had seen it, and carried home such a report of its stately grandeur, that a visit was forthwith projected. Nature was in one of her richest autumnal moods. "She dies, as a queen should--in royal robes,"--said Lynn. "Note the purple haze upon those hills, and the yellow glory that bathes the foreground! I would sacrifice this right arm, could I first transfer that light to canvass. Loveliness like this maddens me with a Tantalus frenzy. To think that it must fade, when it should be immortal! I would have it ever before me." "It lives in your memory. That is a pleasure, time nor distance diminishes."