ladies said to him after; a kind of golden mist had seemed to him to fill the air. The place was not desolate when she went out of it, because she left it full of herself, full of vibrations and echoes. He had heard the kind elder voices in his ears, with their long sentences and the responsive waves of their talk, and had been aware that he took some share in it, had answered them when they spoke, and was not without comprehension of their meaning. But he had felt that he was in haste to get away, to be alone, to think over this new thing. And accordingly he did think it over, or rather he walked into the unbroken enjoyment of it, into the contemplation of Lilias, when he walked out of those old-fashioned doors into the afternoon sunshine. He did not think of her, he only moved along in a current which was her, in air which was full of her. He did not understand the sensation; it was as new to him as she was--new and delightful, entrancing his soul. Lewis moved along down the country-road and through the village with his heart full of this strange and novel flood of feeling. Her look, as, turning his head suddenly in the midst of the genuine fervour of his address to Miss Jean, he had caught sight of her, and the words had gone out on his lips: the turn of her head, the going and coming of her smile as she sat opposite to him at table, the few words she said, the simplicity of appearance and movements, only a little girl, and yet the queen of all--these were before him as he walked, and not the features of the landscape. Now it was one recollection, now another; the manner in which she turned to go out of the room, the half curtsey, the half laugh, full of a sweet malice, the glance of her blue eyes, half mocking, half ceremonious. Never had drama been so full of interest for a spectator. He went over everything. Then he went into his parlour and threw himself down upon his hard angular sofa, and went over it all again--every look, every movement, every raising of the eyelids. He seemed to himself not to have forgotten a single movement, or step, or word, or almost breath. She came in with him to the dingy room just as she had come along the road. It was all a revelation, and so full of dazzling light that it confused his mind and everything about him; the sun was not so bright, nor the world so fair, as this new creature who had suddenly made of herself a new centre to the universe.