Christmas had passed before he left the house of his mother's friend, and health again glowed on his cheeks, strength revisited his frame. No one that saw Henry Cranstoun upon his entering the house of Mr Percy three months before, and who had not seen him in the meanwhile, would have known him to be the same individual. But Agnes noted no change in him. She knew that his health was now restored; but she had begun to hope and love at the same moment, and she had never thought that Henry would die. His eyes had ever been bright to her--his voice ever pleasing; and her beauty, her gentleness, her sweetness of temper, her kindness, her looks, her tones of affection, had fallen upon his bosom, till every thought, save the thought of Agnes, was banished. He was to leave her father's house: he bade her _farewell_. Till that moment, they had not known how dear they were unto each other. They had never spoken of love; and, to hearts that do love, there is little need for such declarations. The affection of every glance, the guarded delicacy of every action, speaks it more plainly than the impassioned eloquence of language. True eloquence is feeling, and feeling dictates the words to be used, pouring them forth in the full tide of the heart's emotion; but, though love also be feeling, it is not of that kind which makes men eloquent. True love is dumb as true gratitude. It speaks from the glowing eye and the throbbing bosom; from the hand passionately grasped--not from the tongue. Henry and Agnes said little; but they fell upon the necks of each other when they parted. She wept, and from his eyes the tear was ready to fall. He kissed her brow, and said that in the spring he would return. He left Northumberland, and his parents welcomed him as one received from the dead. He was strong and healthy, and he alone, of all their children, seemed to have overcome the power of the destroyer. Yet a week never passed but he wrote to his friends, who had snatched him as from the gates of death; or rather, I should say, that he wrote to the gentle Agnes, requesting that the expression of his gratitude might be given to her parents, until he returned to thank them. But spring came; and with it Henry Cranstoun returned to Till-side. Health still glowed in his eyes, and beamed upon his cheeks. He was fond of angling, and, with his rod in his hand, he sought amusement in the gentle art; yet his favourite pastime afforded him no pleasure, save when Agnes was by his side, and then they would sit down on the brae-side together, with her hand in his, and the fishing-rod on the ground, and they forgot that he had gone out to fish, until evening came, and he returned with his creel empty. Thus five years passed on, and twice in every year Henry Cranstoun visited his friends in Northumberland. He had commenced practice in Edinburgh; fair prospects opened before him; his marriage-day was fixed; and need I say that the bride was Agnes?