All that morning Glyndon was almost overpowered with the new sentiment of happiness that had entered into him. He roamed into the woods, and he felt a pleasure that resembled his earlier life of an artist, but a pleasure yet more subtle and vivid, in the various colours of the autumn foliage. Certainly Nature seemed to be brought closer to him; he comprehended better all that Mejnour had often preached to him of the mystery of sympathies and attractions. He was about to enter into the same law as those mute children of the forests. He was to know THE RENEWAL OF LIFE; the seasons that chilled to winter should yet bring again the bloom and the mirth of spring. Man’s common existence is as one year to the vegetable world: he has his spring, his summer, his autumn, and winter,--but only ONCE. But the giant oaks round him go through a revolving series of verdure and youth, and the green of the centenarian is as vivid in the beams of May as that of the sapling by its side. “Mine shall be your spring, but not your winter!” exclaimed the aspirant. Wrapped in these sanguine and joyous reveries, Glyndon, quitting the woods, found himself amidst cultivated fields and vineyards to which his footstep had not before wandered; and there stood, by the skirts of a green lane that reminded him of verdant England, a modest house,--half cottage, half farm. The door was open, and he saw a girl at work with her distaff. She looked up, uttered a slight cry, and, tripping gayly into the lane to his side, he recognised the dark-eyed Fillide. “Hist!” she said, archly putting her finger to her lip; “do not speak loud,--my mother is asleep within; and I knew you would come to see me. It is kind!” Glyndon, with a little embarrassment, accepted the compliment to his kindness, which he did not exactly deserve. “You have thought, then, of me, fair Fillide?” “Yes,” answered the girl, colouring, but with that frank, bold ingenuousness, which characterises the females of Italy, especially of the lower class, and in the southern provinces,--“oh, yes! I have thought of little else. Paolo said he knew you would visit me.” “And what relation is Paolo to you?” “None; but a good friend to us all. My brother is one of his band.” “One of his band!--a robber?” “We of the mountains do not call a mountaineer ‘a robber,’ signor.” “I ask pardon. Do you not tremble sometimes for your brother’s life? The law--” “Law never ventures into these defiles. Tremble for him! No. My father and grandsire were of the same calling. I often wish I were a man!” “By these lips, I am enchanted that your wish cannot be realised.” “Fie, signor! And do you really love me?” “With my whole heart!” “And I thee!” said the girl, with a candour that seemed innocent, as she suffered him to clasp her hand. “But,” she added, “thou wilt soon leave us; and I--” She stopped short, and the tears stood in her eyes.