Your comfort stimulates me." "How _dear_, how _dear_ ?" Emily cried to the silence of the study, and kissed the letter with impassioned happiness.
[Illustration: Lady Maria Bayne] The next epistle went even farther.

It absolutely contained "things" and referred to the past which it was her joy to pour libations before in secret thought.

When her eye caught the phrase "the days at Mallowe" in the middle of a sheet, she was almost frightened at the rush of pleasure which swept over her.

Men who were less aloof from sentimental moods used such phrases in letters, she had read and heard.

It was almost as if he had said "the dear old days at Mallowe" or "the happy days at Mallowe," and the rapture of it was as much as she could bear.
"I cannot help remembering as I lie here," she read in actual letters as she went on, "of the many thoughts which passed through my mind as I drove over the heath to pick you up.