If you are alone, and, alas! would not think,--if thinking be too painful,--it will dispel your sorrow, and give the comfort which music alone can give.

Alice felt that the air kissed her, that the river sang for her its sweetest song, that the moon shone for her with its softest light,--that light which lends the poetry of half-developed beauty to everything that it touches.

Why should she leave it?
Nothing was said for some minutes after Kate's departure, and Alice was beginning to shake from her that half feeling of danger which had come over her.

Vavasor had sat back in his chair, leaning against the house, with his feet raised upon a stool; his arms were folded across his breast, and he seemed to have divided himself between his thoughts and his cigar.

Alice was looking full upon the river, and her thoughts had strayed away to her future home among John Grey's flower-beds and shrubs; but the river, though it sang to her pleasantly, seemed to sing a song of other things than such a home as that,--a song full of mystery, as are all river songs when one tries to understand their words.
"When are you to be married, Alice ?" said George at last.
"Oh, George!" said she.