But the two immediate actors in this social drama--the family doves of inquiry, who might bring back angry thorns instead of olive branches--the innocent sweet pioneers of the incipient strife, went on untroubled in their youthful pleasure, looking at the river and the sunshine, dreaming the fairy dreams of youth. What new life they verged and bordered--what great consequences might grow and blossom from the seedtime of to-day--how their soft white hands, heedless and unconscious, might touch the trembling strings of fate--no one of all these anxious questions ever entered the charmed enclosure of this homely carriage, where they leant back into their several corners, and sung to themselves, in unthinking sympathy with the roll and hum of the leisurely wheels, conveying them on and on to their new friends and their future life. They were content to leave all questions of the kind to a more suitable season--and so, singing, smiling, whispering (though no one was near to interrupt them), went on, on their charmed way, with their youth and their light hearts, to Armida and her enchanted garden--to the world, with its syrens and its lions--forecasting no difficulties, seeing no evil. They had no day-book to brood over like Papa. To-morrow’s magnificent blank of possibility was always before them, dazzling and glorious--they went forward into it with the freshest smile and the sweetest confidence. Of all the evils and perils of this wicked world, which they had heard so much of, they knew none which they, in their happy safety, were called upon to fear. END OF VOL. I. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. * * * * * THE ATHELINGS THE ATHELINGS OR THE THREE GIFTS BY MARGARET OLIPHANT “I’ the cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit The roofs of palaces; and nature prompts them, In simple and low things, to prince it much Beyond the trick of others.” CYMBELINE IN THREE VOLUMES VOL. II. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLVII ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN BLACKWOOD’S MAGAZINE. THE ATHELINGS BOOK II.--THE OLD WOOD LODGE THE ATHELINGS. BOOK II--CHAPTER I. THE WILLOWS.