His genius reposed dreamily upon the calm, but exquisite sense of his happiness.

Alice was not absolutely in his thoughts, but unconsciously she coloured them all--if she had left his side, the whole charm would have been broken.
But Alice, who was not a poet or a genius, _was_ thinking, and thinking only of Maltravers....

His image was "the broken mirror" multiplied in a thousand faithful fragments over everything fair and soft in that lovely microcosm before her.

But they were both alike in one thing--they were not with the Future, they were sensible of the Present--the sense of the actual life, the enjoyment of the breathing time was strong within them.
Such is the privilege of the extremes of our existence--Youth and Age.
Middle life is never with to-day, its home is in to-morrow...

anxious, and scheming, and desiring, and wishing this plot ripened, and that hope fulfilled, while every wave of the forgotten Time brings it nearer and nearer to the end of all things.