'Glorious was the summer day; exhaled by heat, the silvery mist was curling up from the rich pastures, amid which the drowsy cattle stood knee-deep, and from the fertile arable lands, over which the giant sails of the windmills cast their shadows; but my heart--now that I was alone, though separated from Lucien by only a carriage or two--sank lower and lower with vague apprehension, and I restrained my tears with difficulty. I was full of terrors, scruples, and fears an English girl, circumstanced as I was, would fail to comprehend, and after traversing miles of dairy farms, where the summer breeze played so sweetly on the long ripples of verdant grass, we reached the little roadside station, where a path diverged to Elewyt. I gathered courage when Lucien Volcarts joined me, and we found ourselves indeed alone, for we were the only persons who quitted the train, which steamed slowly--as all Belgian trains do--on its way to Vilvorde, and our short but delicious day of rambling and planning, scheming and dreaming out our future, hand clasped in hand, began. 'We saw the old château of Rubens, now falling fast to decay, amid its trees, on the land of which he was seigneur, but we did not go near it, and contented ourselves with wandering amid the sylvan scenery, all of which had the charm of extreme novelty to me. The birds that flew overhead or sung in the hedgerows; the thickets of beech and oak, casting shadows over pools where the trout rose to catch the floating fly; the white, waxen-like lilies floating also on their surface; a little stream pouring slowly between gravel banks and sandstone rocks; deep water-cuts in which the Cuyp-like cattle stood midleg for coolness; the quaint cottages, few and far apart; the carillons playing in a distant spire, were all sources of delight to me--delight all the more that I could turn from them ever and anon to look into the tender and loving eyes of Lucien. 'At one of the cottages, which quite approached the dignity of a small farm, we got some refreshment--bread, milk, and cheese--just as we had been wont to do when children in charge of the same _bonne_, and the recollection of that made us laugh and all the more enjoy such simple fare; and truth to tell, though so near our marriage day, in the freedom of the hour we felt very much as if we were happy children again; and long we lingered in one spot, I remember, on a grassy bank under a bower of hawthorn, where the flies buzzed and the bees hummed, and the village bells rang softly out, but now it was their evening chime. 'Evening--that suggested thoughts of home and the necessity for returning, and we had some miles to walk to the railway-station at Elewyt. '"It is only five, dearest Lisette," urged Lucien, looking at his watch; "and the train, which deposits us at Antwerp, is not due for an hour yet. In a little time we shall go, _petite_."