He put his hand to his breast; so distinctly did he seem to feel that cord drawn once, and again, and again, as if--though still it was bashfully intimated there were an importunate demand for his presence.

O for the white wings of Hilda's doves, that he might, have flown thither, and alighted at the Virgin's shrine! But lovers, and Kenyon knew it well, project so lifelike a copy of their mistresses out of their own imaginations, that it can pull at the heartstrings almost as perceptibly as the genuine original.

No airy intimations are to be trusted; no evidences of responsive affection less positive than whispered and broken words, or tender pressures of the hand, allowed and half returned; or glances, that distil many passionate avowals into one gleam of richly colored light.

Even these should be weighed rigorously, at the instant; for, in another instant, the imagination seizes on them as its property, and stamps them with its own arbitrary value.

But Hilda's maidenly reserve had given her lover no such tokens, to be interpreted either by his hopes or fears.
"Yonder, over mountain and valley, lies Rome," said the sculptor; "shall you return thither in the autumn ?" "Never! I hate Rome," answered Donatello; "and have good cause." "And yet it was a pleasant winter that we spent there," observed Kenyon, "and with pleasant friends about us.