"However, if the little plant has lost much to the taste, it has gained more to the eye. I never noticed, in those days, what a delicately outlined leaf, and slender, translucent stem it had, nor how fresh was its tint of green. If Mr. Arling were here, now, he would turn that into a simile,--something about a spiritual sense developed out of an earthly one, or a refined enjoyment only to be attained through some loss of the capacity for commoner pleasures;--isn't that a little in his style? Ah! there he is." Bergan was looking straight before him, so much absorbed in his own thoughts that he did not see the friends until he was close at hand. He immediately dismounted, flung his bridle to the groom, and came toward them with extended hand. "So you were going to leave without bidding us good-bye," said Miss Thane, coolly, ignoring the offered hand, but looking him searchingly in the eyes. If Bergan felt a little embarrassment under that look, he did not betray it. "I supposed that you were not up," he answered, with perfect composure. "And whoever travels at this season of the year, had best do it betimes in the morning, before the sunbeams are hot as well as bright. Miss Coralie, I am glad to see you looking so fully yourself." His sentence ended a little abruptly, as if whatever else he had intended to say was suddenly put out of his head. He, too, had become dimly aware of some subtle change or development in Coralie, since the evening before,--a more womanly grace, a new character of beauty; which, however, only served to bring the image of Carice vividly before him--Carice, as he had seen her last, and would never see her again, under the shadowy pines, by the dreaming river, with the newborn love-light in her eyes, and the dawn-rose of love in her cheeks. Scarce knowing what he did, he lifted his hand, to see if, haply, he might shut out both images together. Coralie's eyes fell on that hand, which was carefully bandaged from wrist to knuckles; and the unconquerable shyness which had seized her, on Bergan's appearance, was instantly dissipated. "What is that?" she asked;--"oh, Mr. Arling, were you burned last night in trying to save me?" Bergan looked at Diva and smiled. "It is nothing," said he, lightly,--"only your aunt and Miss Thane insisted upon binding it up after I got home; and the least that I can do is to wear their kindly handiwork for a day or two." "Oh, Diva," exclaimed Coralie reproachfully, the quick moisture coming into her eyes, "why did you not tell me?" "Why should I?" replied Diva, with somewhat bitter emphasis; "_hands_ heal quickly." "Miss Thane is quite right," said Bergan; "the matter was not worth mentioning. Certainly, it was not worth one of those tears, Miss Coralie; you will make me too proud of having gotten a small scratch in the fray. If it were ten times as much, it would in nowise offset what I owe your father. Now I must bid you farewell, or I shall miss the train."