such a place as a palace might be--a house for a queen; and to think that he had almost lived in it for so long, and that now he was to enter there no more! Harry was not like the Peri at the gate of Paradise; he had a still more pathetic, a heart-rending sense of loss. He had been there yesterday; but he was not to be there again perhaps for ever. Why should he go away? and yet he must go away; he must keep himself at a distance from those dear doors. Slowly there gathered in his eyes a painful dew; it did not fall in tears, which he would have scorned himself for shedding, but it blurred and magnified all he saw. Yesterday so much at home, so familiar in the place, to-morrow with no entrance possible to him any more! and all by no fault of his or anyone’s; by no levity on _her_ part, or presumption on his; all unawares, no one thinking of any danger. It seemed to Harry, standing outside there, as if there was something very hard in such a wayward accident of fate, as if some malign spirit must have taken pleasure in twisting the threads wrongly; in making trouble out of the most innocent situations in life. He had never meant to go further than liking--no one could help going as far as liking; but the unlucky fellow, without meaning it, had taken the step farther, and loved; and now all his card-castle of happiness had tumbled down, and everything was over. There was nothing wrong in it--no fault in it one way or another: and yet a great many faults would have produced less confusion and pain. CHAPTER XI. WITH HER FATHER.