Faint and fainter, the echoes repeated the receding harmony, until at last they died away. A solemn silence succeeded. A languor like that of the lotus-eaters crept over the face of nature and softened the heart to unwonted tenderness. It was the hour of gentle thoughts, of low spoken confidences, and love between young and sympathizing souls, who alone with themselves and God confess their mutual love and invoke his blessing upon it. CHAPTER XXIX. FELICES TER ET AMPLIUS. Amélie, by accident or by contrivance of her fair companions,--girls are so wily and sympathetic with each other,--had been left seated by the side of Philibert, on the twisted roots of a gigantic oak forming a rude but simple chair fit to enthrone the king of the forest and his dryad queen. No sound came to break the quiet of the evening hour save the monotonous plaint of a whippoorwill in a distant brake, and the ceaseless chirm of insects among the leafy boughs and down in the ferns that clustered on the knolls round about. Philibert let fall upon his knee the book which he had been reading. His voice faltered, he could not continue without emotion the touching tale of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. Amélie's eyes were suffused with tears of pity, for her heart had beat time to the music of Dante's immortal verse as it dropped in measured cadence from the lips of Philibert. She had read the pathetic story before, but never comprehended until now the weakness which is the strength of love. Oh, blessed paradox of a woman's heart! And how truly the Commedia, which is justly called Divine, unlocks the secret chambers of the human soul. “Read no more, Pierre,” said she, “that book is too terrible in its beauty and in its sadness! I think it was written by a disembodied spirit who had seen all worlds, knew all hearts, and shared in all sufferings. It sounds to me like the sad voice of a prophet of woe.” “Amélie,” replied he, “believe you there are women faithful and true as Francesca da Rimini? She would not forsake Paolo even in the gloomy regions of despair. Believe you that there are such women?” Amélie looked at him with a quick, confident glance. A deep flush covered her cheek, and her breath went and came rapidly; she knew what to answer, but she thought it might seem overbold to answer such a question. A second thought decided her, however. Pierre Philibert would ask her no question to which she might not answer, she said to herself. Amélie replied to him slowly, but undoubtingly: “I think there are such women, Pierre,” replied she, “women who would never, even in the regions of despair, forsake the man whom they truly love, no, not for all the terrors recorded in that awful book of Dante!” “It is a blessed truth, Amélie,” replied he, eagerly; and he thought, but did not say it, “Such a woman you are; the man who gets your love gets that which neither earth nor heaven nor hell can take away.”