CHAPTER XII.
DOLLY ACTS AN IMPORTANT PART.
The faintest of breezes wafted in the young people's faces as they descended the wooden steps of the boarding-house and passed along the dark, deserted sidewalk of the village street.

The noisy dance was soon left at a distance; how extravagant and unnatural it seemed in comparison with the deep, sweet night in which they were losing themselves! The brightness of the stars, and the wavering peaks and jagged edges of the northern lights, brought out the shadows of the uneven hills, and revealed the winding length of downy mist which kept the stream in the valley warm.

Such was the stillness, and the subdued tone of the landscape, that it seemed unreal--the phantom of a world which had lost its sunshine, and was mourning for it in gentle melancholy.
The sense of the solitude around them brought the young man and woman closer to one another.

For enjoyment to be, mortally speaking, perfect, it needs that a soft and dreamy element of sadness should be added to it; and this was given by the gracious influence of the night.

The darkness, too, encouraged the germs of that mutual reliance, hopefulness, and trust, which combine to build up the more vital and profound relations of life.