The colour had come warmly up into her cheek as he spoke; and Gowrie paused an instant, doubting what were the emotions in which the blush had its source; "Or--" he added, "or as the true and sincere friend, fulfilling towards you the promise made to one loved, esteemed, and mourned by both; but, with deep and bitter disappointment in his heart, pouring shadow and darkness over his whole afterlife." Julia started, gazed at him for an instant, and then exclaimed, "Oh no, Gowrie, no!--Can you have doubted?--Can you really have painted such a picture to your own fancy?--Can you think me so ungrateful--so base?" And she let her forehead fall upon his shoulder, while his arm stole round her waist. "Thanks, dearest girl, thanks!" he said; "but tell me--tell me, Julia, is it with your whole heart?" She looked up, with her cheek burning, and replied, in a voice hardly audible, "Do not doubt it! When he is gone, there will be none to share with you;" and Gowrie pressed her tenderly to his bosom. "Enough, enough," he said; "now I shall be quite happy." Oh, vain words! Oh, rash anticipations! What mortal has ever had the right to infer that he shall be happy, even for an hour? Any man may learn, how much stronger hope is than fear in the human heart, by examining whether his expectations of joy, or his apprehensions of sorrow, have been most frequently disappointed. CHAPTER VI. It was a dull and heavy day in the month of September. The sky had been covered each evening, for the last week, with dark flocculent clouds, high up in air, but still leaden and lowering, and now the rain descended in the city of the ten colleges in a perfect deluge. The country round Padua rejoiced, for the summer had been very dry and hot, and the land yearned for the dew of heaven; but the streets of the town were almost impassable, except under the arcades on the west side--where any street was fortunate enough to have a west side--for there was a strong wind blowing, which drifted the large drops under the arches to the east, and a torrent flowed down the middle of each street, increased every two or three yards by a gushing spout projecting from the house top. There was, however, sunshine in one of the dwellings of the town, for Julia's heart was happier than she almost liked to own. She sat with a letter before her from Gowrie, announcing that he would be speedily back in Padua; and she herself was writing to him, telling him part of the feelings which arose in her own bosom--for she had not yet taken courage to tell him all--and conveying to him the glad tidings that her aged relation had entirely recovered from his late serious illness, and was looking better than she had seen him for many a month.