V

I wonder what words could render that love-dream on the dear silvered
sands, with the moon overhead, the dark shadowy cliffs and the old
church on one side, and the North Sea murmuring a love-chime on the
other!

Suffice it to record that Winifred, with a throb in her throat (a
throb that prevented her from pronouncing her n's with the clarity
that some might have desired), said 'certumly' again to Henry's
suit,--'Certumly, if in a year's time you seek me out in the
mountains, and your eyes and voice show that prosperity has not
spoiled you, but that you are indeed my Henry.' And this being
settled in strict accordance with her aunt's injunctions, she never
tried to disguise how happy she was, but told Henry again and again
in answer to his importunate questions--told him with her frank
courage how she had loved him from the first in the old churchyard as
a child--loved him for what she called his love-eyes; told him--ah!
what did she not tell him? I must not go on. These things should not
be written about at all but for the demands of my story.

And how soon she forgot that the betrothal was all on one side! I
could write out every word of that talk. I remember every accent of
her voice, every variation of light that came and went in her eyes,
every ripple of love-laughter, every movement of her body, lissome as
a greyhound's, graceful as a bird's. For fully an hour it lasted. And
remember, reader, that it was on the silvered sands, every inch of
which was associated with some reminiscence of childhood; it was
beneath a moon smiling as fondly and brightly as she ever smiled on
the domes of Venice or between the trees of Fiesole; it was by the