"if I can be near him to lean against him for one full hour!" it would
make her strong again. For, she found that if her heart was rising on a
broad breath, suddenly, for no reason that she knew, it seemed to stop in
its rise, break, and sink, like a wind-beaten billow. Once or twice, in
a quick fear, she thought: "What is this? Is this a malady coming before
death?" She walked out gloomily, thinking of the darkness of the world
to Wilfrid, if she should die. She plucked flowers, and then reproached
herself with plucking them. She tried to sing. "No, not till I have
been with him alone;" she said, chiding her voice to silence. A shadow
crossed her mind, as a Spring-mist dulls the glory of May. "Suppose all
singing has gone from me--will he love wretched me?"

By-and-by she met him in the house. "Come out of doors
to-night," she whispered.

Wilfrid's spirit of intrigue was never to be taken by surprise. "In the
wood, under the pine, at nine," he replied.

"Not there," said Emilia, seeing this place mournfully dark from
Cornelia's grief. "It is too still; say, where there's water falling.
One can't be unhappy by noisy water."

Wilfrid considered, and named Wilming Weir. "And there we'll sit and
you'll sing to me. I won't dine at home, so they won't susp-a-fancy
anything.--Soh! and you want very much to be with me, my bird? What am
I?" He bent his head.

"My lover."

He pressed her hand rapturously, half-doubting whether her pronunciation