Remembering all this, thinking what he would do and say were the doing and saying yet possible in an untried future, the time sped by.  He waited and waited in vain.  He looked, yet was gratified by no sight for which his eyes longed.  He hoped, till hope gave place to despondency and almost despair:  not a word came to him, not a line of answer or remembrance.  This long silence was all the more intolerable, since the time that intervened did but the more vividly stamp upon his memory the delights of the past, and color with softer and more exquisite tints the recollection of vanished hours,—­hours spent in galloping gayly by her side in the early morning, or idly and deliciously lounged away in picture-galleries or concert-rooms, or in a conversation carried on in some curious and subtle shape between two hearts and spirits with the help of very few uttered words; hours in which he had whirled her through many a fairy maze and turn of captivating dance-music, or in some less heated and crowded room, or cool conservatory, listened to the voice of the siren who walked by his side, “while the sweet wind did gently kiss the flowers and make no noise,” and the strains of “flute, violin, bassoon,” and the sounds of the “dancers dancing in tune,” coming to them on the still air of night, seemed like the sounds from another and a far-off world,—­listened, listened, listened, while his silver-tongued enchantress builded castles in the air, or beguiled his thought, enthralled his heart, his soul and fancy, through many a golden hour.

Thinking of all this, his heart well found expression for its feelings in the half-pleasing, half-sorrowful lines which almost unconsciously repeated themselves again and again in his brain:—­

  “Still o’er those scenes my memory wakes,
  And fondly broods with miser care;
  Time but the impression deeper makes,
  As streams their channels deeper wear.”

Thinking of all this, he took comfort in spite of his trouble.  “Perhaps,” he said to himself, “he was mistaken.  Perhaps”—­O happy thought!—­it was but make-believe displeasure which had so tortured him.  Perhaps—­yes, he would believe it—­she had never received his letter; they had been careless, they had failed to give it her or to send it aright.  He would write her once again, in language which would relieve his heart, and which she must comprehend.  He loved her; perhaps, ah, perhaps she loved him a little in return:  he would believe so till he was undeceived, and be infinitely happy in the belief.

Is it not wondrous how even the tiniest grain of love will permeate the saddest and sorest recesses of the heart, and instantly cause it to pulsate with thoughts and emotions the sweetest and dearest in life?  O Love, thou sweet, thou young and rose lipped cherubim, how does thy smile illuminate the universe! how does thy slightest touch electrify the soul! how gently and tenderly dost thou lead us up to heaven!