The calm evening light was shining sweetly upon park, and wood, and valley, and high, bare down: a strong wind blew the fleecy clouds fast across the sky, varying the face of earth with shadows that chased one another like children in their play; and ever and anon the sun was left clear and brilliant, and his rays, poured obliquely from a point hardly two hand's-breadth from the horizon, gilded the western sides of the trees, and made their lustrous leaves shine like diamonds. Through the heart of Eda Brandon the shadowy clouds of manifold emotions passed as rapidly as the vapours over the sky, but still the sun of hope shone forth again, and rendered the little world of her fair bosom as bright and sparkling as the scene around her. He was safe, he was home again, he was near her, he was clear of blame; his innocence was made manifest to the eyes of the whole world. She could look with pride even to his sufferings and to her own love; she could say, "He has been injured, traduced, and grieved, but he is innocent, and I have loved him still." Oh! how joyful was the thought of consoling him through life for all he had undergone! how sweet the expectation of seeing him again, as, leaning on Edgar's arm, she walked quickly across the park towards the old priory; but yet those feelings were sorely agitating. Joy would hold its place, and all seem glad and cheerful for a time; but then, the very intensity of her affection would reach a point which became almost painful, and a sensation of faintness would come over her, and make her pause and pant for breath. Edgar felt for her; for although a great change had come over him since first he was presented to the reader; although experience and action, the seasoning fires of youth, had given decision and firmness to his character; although he had grown more powerful in mind, more manly in character, yet not one of the warm enthusiastic feelings of his heart had been lost, and he could understand what it was to feel, with sensations very like those of fear, the meeting with a lover under such circumstances as hers. He soothed her kindly, and tenderly, too; he cheered her with every bright subject that fancy could suggest; but he ventured not to laugh or jest, as he might have done at another time; for he saw and knew that the emotions were too deep, the waters of the heart too profound, to be stirred by the light winds in sport. At length the limits of the park were reached, and they passed out. He walked quickly through the little wood, though Eda murmured, "Oh, Edgar!" and would fain have paused for a moment, for he thought she would be better, stronger, happier, when the first meeting was over. In a minute more, the gray ruin, and the green ivy, and the little meadow before the sculptured porch, and the stream glancing beyond, were before their eyes, and the form of Dudley, rising up from a pile of architectural fragments, on which he had been sitting, was in Eda's sight.