Mrs Rowland would have laughed at the idea of a walk on a December afternoon, if she had happened to know of the circumstance; but others than lovers might have considered it pleasant. The sun was still an hour from its setting; and high in the pale heaven was the large moon, ready to shine upon the fields and woods, and shed a milder day. No frost had yet bound up the earth; it had only stripped the trees with a touch as gentle as that of the fruit-gatherer. No wintry gusts had yet swept through the woods; and all there was this day as still as in the autumn noon, when the nut is heard to drop upon the fallen leaves, and the light squirrel is startled at the rustle along its own path. As a matter of course, the lovers took their way to the Spring in the Vernon woods, the spot which had witnessed more of their confidence than any other. In the alcove above it they had taken shelter from the summer storm and the autumn shower; they had sat on its brink for many an hour, when the pure depths of its rocky basin seemed like coolness itself in the midst of heat, and when falling leaves fluttered down the wind, and dimpled the surface of the water. They now paused once more under shelter of the rock which overhung one side of the basin, and listened to the trickle of the spring. If "aside the devil turned for envy" in the presence of the pair in Paradise, it might be thought that he would take flight from this scene also; from the view of this resting of the lovers on their marriage eve, when the last sun of their separate lives was sinking, and the separate business of their existence was finished, and their paths had met before the gate of their paradise, and they were only waiting for the portal to open to them. But there was that on Hester's brow which would have made the devil look closer. She was discomposed, and her replies to what was said were brief, and not much to the purpose. After a few moments' silence, Mr Hope said gaily-- "There is something on our minds, Hester. Come, what is it?" "Do not say `our minds.' You know you never have anything on yours. I believe it is against your nature; and I know it is against your principles. Do not say `our minds.'" "I say it because it is true. I never see you look grave but my heart is as heavy--. But never mind that. What is the matter, love?" "Nothing," sighed Hester. "Nothing that any one can help--. People may say what they will, Edward: but there can be no escape from living alone in this world, after all." "What _do_ you mean?" "I mean what no one, not even you, can gainsay. I mean that `the heart knoweth its own bitterness;' that we have disappointments, and anxieties, and remorse, and many, many kinds of trouble that we can never tell to any human being--that none have any concern with--that we should never dare to tell. We must be alone in the world, after all."