"_Eh bien!_ of the theology of creams I know nothing. I only know that Eve was the first and fairest of her sex, and that you are as wise as you are beautiful." "Nay, that is what Titania said to the ass," laughed Hortense. "Your compliments become equivocal, fellow-student. But hush! what hour is that?" She stood with uplifted finger. The air was keen, and over the silence of the house-tops chimed the church-clocks--Two. "It is late, and cold," said she, drawing her cloak more closely round her. "Not later than you usually sit up," I replied. "Don't go yet. 'Tis now the very witching hour of night, when churchyards yawn--" "I beg your pardon," she interrupted. "The churchyards have done yawning by this time, and, like other respectable citizens, are sound asleep. Let us follow their example. Good-night." "Good-night," I replied, reluctantly; but almost before I had said it, she was gone. After this, as the winter wore away, and spring drew on, Hortense's balcony became once more a garden, and she used to attend to her flowers every evening. She always found me on my balcony when she came out, and soon our open-air meetings became such an established fact that, instead of parting with "good-night," we said "_au revoir_--till to-morrow." At these times we talked of many things; sometimes of subjects abstract and mystical--of futurity, of death, of the spiritual life--but oftenest of Art in its manifold developments. And sometimes our speculations wandered on into the late hours of the night. And yet, for all our talking and all our community of tastes, we became not one jot more intimate. I still loved in silence--she still lived in a world apart. CHAPTER XLVI. THERMOPYLÆ. How dreary 'tis for women to sit still On winter nights by solitary fires, And hear the nations praising them far off. AURORA LEIGH.