“From Nature’s weeping earth more fair appears, So should good works succeed repentant tears!” Gloriously poured down the fervid rays of a July sun, colouring the peach on the wall, swelling the rich fig under its clustering leaves, ripening the purple grape, and over the corn fields throwing a mantle of gold! No longer in the fisherman’s hovel, but reclining on a sofa in the countess’s splendid boudoir, we find the Earl of Dashleigh, yet pale from recent illness; the outline of the sunken cheek, the violet tint beneath the eyes, the whiteness of the transparent skin, tell of suffering severe and protracted, but health and strength are returning to his frame, while to the restored invalid lately released from the confinement of a sick room— “The common air, the earth, the skies, To him are opening paradise!” By the softened light which steals in through the green venetians, the earl has been whiling away the languid, luxurious hour of noon by perusing a volume of light literature, in which he has found great amusement; that volume, bound in violet and gold, is now lying on the sofa beside him; we recognise in it “THE FAIRY LAKE,” written by the Countess of Dashleigh. Annabella is seated on a low ottoman beside her lord. She has been listening with pleased attention to his remarks and comments upon her work. “Perhaps, after all,” observes Dashleigh, laying his hand on the book, “it _is_ hard to restrict to a few that which might afford pleasure to the many, and to deprive the young authoress of the praise and the fame which publication would bring her.” “O Reginald!” replies his wife with glistening eyes, “your praise to me outweighs that of the world, and empty fame is nothing in comparison to a husband’s heart! It would pain me if any eye but yours should ever look on that which I must ever regard as a monument of my own disobedience.” Annabella’s manner towards her husband has undergone a change since their re-union in the fisherman’s cottage. She is gradually resuming her playfulness of conversation, and the wit in which the earl delights still sparkles for his amusement; but there is more, far more of submission to his authority, and of deference to his wishes in her demeanour; Annabella no longer desires to forget that her vow was not only to love, but to obey.