His mother was very much vexed at his going away. She did not think he would have acted up to what he had threatened; but Tom had the same stubborn temper at bottom, and what he had said he would stick to, so she could not alter it. As she saw this she did not press him, for she knew it would be no use; his preparations were therefore rather hurried. Tom, however, was not going to part from Lizzie in that way. He had rushed off that time in a passion, but he was not going to leave her so abruptly, and he went down again to the parsonage to make his peace in his own way. The little conservatory witnessed many little tender scenes before the day of his departure came, although the time was but short for them to be acted in. Pringle had interposed scruples at first, but his calm course of ecstasy with the languid Laura made him somewhat more lenient than the campaigner, his future mother-in-law--the time was drawing on now--would have approved. Tender little scenes of love these were in that romantic conservatory, which had witnessed all Tom's love-making and all his short happiness. Little repetitions and conjugations of the same verb _amo_ over and over again, with its present, and its past, and its future subjunctive tenses. Who has not lived and loved and can fill in all these details? Ah! how well remembered they are--the looks, the smiles, the tears, the joys, the sorrows, the ecstasies of love's young dream! Tom Moore was more eloquent on the subject than Goethe, who told-- Ich habe genossen das irdische Gluck; Ich habe gelebt und geliebt, Is not half so expressive as the Irish Catullus. Fond hearts are severed however, if sometimes only for a time. Tom came down one day to the parsonage to take his last farewell. He had bidden adieu to his mother before. Lizzie he wanted to see last of all! She was the girl he left behind him. It was very sad for the young lovers to part like this, just when they were beginning to know each other. But perhaps it was for the best. With true love "Absence makes the heart grow fonder," with the article of dross the reverse proverb holds true. Perhaps as it is preferable to be able to know which is the real Simon Pure: a separation sometimes works well. There is little good in dwelling on last words. The parting was only for a time, as Tom fondly told Lizzie, trying to cheer her up. One long embrace, one last kiss, and Tom was off. The young Dunois had sallied forth for the Orient, and Lizzie wept like Medora at the departure of Conrad the Corsair, thinking, if not exclaiming-- "And is he gone?" On sudden solitude How oft that question will intrude! "'Twas but an instant past, and here he stood! And now"--without the portal's porch she rush'd, And then her tears at length in freedom gush'd; Big, bright, and fast, unknown to her they fell, And still her lips refused to send "Farewell!" Volume 2, Chapter XII. COUNTER TRAPS.