Climate has a great deal to answer for. A sudden tempest or an opportune mist has turned the scale of more battles than some of the most successful generals would have liked to own. If the next morning had broken sullenly, things might have gone far otherwise. But it was one of those brilliant days that make even the invalids not regret, for the moment, that they have given up all English comforts and home-pleasures for the off-chance of wringing another month or two of life out of the wreck of their constitution. Every thing looked bright and in holiday guise, from the wreaths of ivy glistening on the brows of the shattered old castle, down to the [Greek: _anerithmong elasma_] of the turquoise-sea. Under the circumstances, it was very unlikely that Royston would keep to his virtuous resolutions. The first half of them he carried out perfectly: he did go straight to Cecil Tresilyan, and tell her of his intentions to depart. She did not betray much of her disappointment or surprise, but she argued with so fascinating a casuistry against the necessity of such a sudden step, that it was no wonder if she soon convinced her hearer of the propriety of at least delaying it. In a case like this an excuse of "urgent private affairs" that would suffice for the most rigid martinet that ever tyrannized over a district or a division sounds absurdly trivial and insincere. When a proud beauty does condescend to plead, a man who really cares for her must be very peculiarly constituted if he remains constant in denial. The vision of the night had faded away already. Those poor ghosts! They have no chance--the mystics say--against embodied spirits, if the latter only keep up their courage, and choose to assert their supremacy. Besides, they must, perforce, fly before the dawn. And what dawn was ever so bright as the Tresilyan's smile when she guessed from Royston's face, without his speaking, that she had won the day? So the pic-nic came off according to the arrangement. The weather and every thing else looked so promising that even the vinegar in Bessie Danvers's composition was acidulated; and, when Keene greeted her at the place of _rendezvous_, she favored him with just such a smile as one of the grim Puritan dames, in a rare interval of courtesy, may have granted to Claverhouse or Montrose--the right of reprobation being reserved. It is greatly to be feared that the Malignant did not appreciate the condescension, his attention was so entirely taken up in another quarter.