There: do you see that elegant-looking lady talking with Professor Hale?
that is her aunt, Mrs.
Lancaster.

She is English, and is here only on a visit.

She wants to take Francesca home with her in the spring, but I hope she won't." "Why, what is it to you ?" "I am afraid she will stay, and then I shall never see her any more." "And why stay?
do you fancy England so very fascinating ?" "No, it is not that; but Francesca don't like America; she's forever saying something witty and sharp about our 'democratic institutions,' as she calls them; and, if you had looked this morning, you'd have seen that she didn't sing The Star-Spangled Banner with the rest of us.

Her voice is splendid, and Professor Hale wanted her to lead, as she often does, but she wouldn't sing that, she said,--no, not for anything; and though we all begged, she refused,--flat." "Shocking! what total depravity! I wonder is she converting Surrey to her heresies." No, she wasn't; not unless silence is more potent than words; for after they had danced together Surrey brought her to one of the great windows facing towards the sea, and, leaning over her chair, there was stillness between them as their eyes went out into the night.
A wild night! great clouds drifted across the moon, which shone out anon, with light intensified, defining the stripped trees and desolate landscape, and then the beach, and "Marked with spray The sunken reefs, and far away The unquiet, bright Atlantic plain," while through all sounded incessantly the mournful roar of buffeting wind and surging tide; and whether it was the scene, or the solemn undertone of the sea, the dance music, which a little while before had been so gay, sounded like a wail.
How could it be otherwise?
Passion is akin to pain.

Love never yet penetrated an intense nature and made the heart light; sentiment has its smiles, its blushes, its brightness, its words of fancy and feeling, readily and at will; but when the internal sub-soiling is broken up, the heart swells with a steady and tremendous pressure till the breast feels like bursting; the lips are dumb, or open only to speak upon indifferent themes.