“Mr. Ercildoune! is there no Mrs. E.?”

“None,—­her mother died long ago; and her father has not been here, so I can’t tell you anything about him.  There:  do you see that elegant-looking lady talking with Professor Hale? that is her aunt, Mrs. Lancaster.  She is English, and is here only on a visit.  She wants to take Francesca home with her in the spring, but I hope she won’t.”

“Why, what is it to you?”

“I am afraid she will stay, and then I shall never see her any more.”

“And why stay? do you fancy England so very fascinating?”

“No, it is not that; but Francesca don’t like America; she’s forever saying something witty and sharp about our ‘democratic institutions,’ as she calls them; and, if you had looked this morning, you’d have seen that she didn’t sing The Star-Spangled Banner with the rest of us.  Her voice is splendid, and Professor Hale wanted her to lead, as she often does, but she wouldn’t sing that, she said,—­no, not for anything; and though we all begged, she refused,—­flat.”

“Shocking! what total depravity!  I wonder is she converting Surrey to her heresies.”

No, she wasn’t; not unless silence is more potent than words; for after they had danced together Surrey brought her to one of the great windows facing towards the sea, and, leaning over her chair, there was stillness between them as their eyes went out into the night.

A wild night! great clouds drifted across the moon, which shone out anon, with light intensified, defining the stripped trees and desolate landscape, and then the beach, and

      “Marked with spray
  The sunken reefs, and far away
  The unquiet, bright Atlantic plain,”

while through all sounded incessantly the mournful roar of buffeting wind and surging tide; and whether it was the scene, or the solemn undertone of the sea, the dance music, which a little while before had been so gay, sounded like a wail.

How could it be otherwise?  Passion is akin to pain.  Love never yet penetrated an intense nature and made the heart light; sentiment has its smiles, its blushes, its brightness, its words of fancy and feeling, readily and at will; but when the internal sub-soiling is broken up, the heart swells with a steady and tremendous pressure till the breast feels like bursting; the lips are dumb, or open only to speak upon indifferent themes.  Flowers may be played with, but one never yet cared to toy with flame.

There are souls that are created for one another in the eternities, hearts that are predestined each to each, from the absolute necessities of their nature; and when this man and this woman come face to face, these hearts throb and are one; these souls recognize “my master!” “my mistress!” at the first glance, without words uttered or vows pronounced.

These two young lives, so fresh, so beautiful; these beings, in many things such antipodes, so utterly dissimilar in person, so unlike, yet like; their whole acquaintance a glance on a crowded street and these few hours of meeting,—­looked into one another’s eyes, and felt their whole nature set each to each, as the vast tide “of the bright, rocking ocean sets to shore at the full moon.”