He sat down near the open window, and did not speak, but sighed heavily from time to time.

Miss Monro took up a book, in order to leave the young people to themselves; and after a little low murmured conversation, Ellinor went upstairs to put on her things for a stroll through the meadows by the river-side.
They were sometimes sauntering along in the lovely summer twilight, now resting on some grassy hedge-row bank, or standing still, looking at the great barges, with their crimson sails, lazily floating down the river, making ripples on the glassy opal surface of the water.

They did not talk very much; Ellinor seemed disinclined for the exertion; and her lover was thinking over Mr.Wilkins's behaviour, with some surprise and distaste of the habit so evidently growing upon him.
They came home, looking serious and tired: yet they could not account for their fatigue by the length of their walk, and Miss Monro, forgetting Autolycus's song, kept fidgeting about Ellinor, and wondering how it was she looked so pale, if she had only been as far as the Ash Meadow.

To escape from this wonder, Ellinor went early to bed.

Mr.Wilkins was gone, no one knew where, and Ralph and Miss Monro were left to a half- hour's _tete-a-tete_.