The next day opened bright and clear, and before ten o'clock, the thermometer had risen to seventy degrees.

Instead of sitting in front of the fireplace, Lawrence had his chair and table brought close to his open doorway, where he could look out on the same beautiful scene which had greeted his eyes a few days before.

"But what is the good," he thought, "of this green grass, this sunny air, that blue sky, those white clouds, and the distant tinted foliage, without that figure, which a few days ago stood in the foreground of the picture ?" But, as the woman to whom, in his soul's sight, the whole world was but a background, was not there, he turned his eyes from the warm autumnal scene, and prepared again to write to her.

He had scarcely taken up his pen, however, when he was interrupted by the arrival of Miss Annie, who came to bring him a book she had just finished reading, a late English novel which she thought might be more interesting than those she had sent him.

The book was one which Lawrence had not seen and wanted to see, but in talking about it, to the young lady, he discovered that she had not read all of it.
"Don't let me deprive you of the book," said Lawrence.