Her simplicity of feeling was at this moment infectious. It appeared the excess of selfishness to think of any thing but love in a desart--while she had no desire beyond. Indeed, in England or America, she lived in a desart, as far as society was concerned, and felt not one of those tenacious though cobweb-seeming ties, that held sway over Villiers. All his explanations therefore went for nothing. They only felt that this discourse concerning him had drawn them nearer to each other, and had laid the first stone of an edifice of friendship, henceforth to be raised beside the already established one of love. A sudden shower forced them also to return home with speed, and so interrupted any further discussion. In the evening Villiers left them; and Ethel sought, as speedily as she might, the solitude of her own chamber. She had no idea of hiding any circumstance from Mrs. Fitzhenry; but confidence is, more than any other thing, a matter of interchange, and cannot be bestowed unless the giver is certain of its being received. They had too little sympathy of taste or idea, and were too little in the habit of communicating their inmost thoughts, to make Ethel recur to her aunt. Besides, young love is ever cradled in mystery;--to reveal it to the vulgar eye, appears at once to deprive it of its celestial loveliness, and to marry it to the clodlike earth. But alone--alone--she could think over the past day--recall its minutest incident; and as she imaged to herself the speaking fondness of her lover's eyes, her own closed, and a thrilling sense of delight swept through her frame. What a different world was this to what it had been the day before! The whole creation was invested by a purer atmosphere, balmy as paradise, which no disquieting thought could penetrate. She called upon her father's spirit to approve her attachment; and when she reflected that Edward's hand had supported his dying head--that to Edward Villiers's care his latest words had intrusted her,--she felt as if she were a legacy bequeathed to him, and that she fulfilled Lodore's last behests in giving herself to him. So sweetly and fondly did her gentle heart strive to make a duty of her wishes; and the idea of her father's approbation set the seal of perfect satisfaction on her dream of bliss.