She did not understand that the quality of love in its finest revelation
desires, after its first sweet inception, a little period of withdrawal--
it wonders at its strange happiness--broods over it--is fearful of
disturbing emotions so exquisite--prefers the certainty of its delicious
suspense to a more definite understanding, and finds a keen strange
delight in its own poignant anxieties and hopes. These are the birth
pangs of an immortal love--of a love that knows within itself, that it
is born for Eternity, and need not to hurry the three-score-and-ten
years of time to a consummation.

Of such noble lineage was the love of Cornelia for Joris Hyde. His
gracious, beautiful youth, seemed a part of her own youth; his ardent,
tender glances had filled her heart with a sweet trouble that she did
not understand. It was the most natural thing in the world that she
should wish to be apart; that she should desire to brood over feelings
so strangely happy; and that in this very brooding they should grow to
the perfect stature of a luminous and unquenchable affection.

Joris was moved by a sentiment of the same kind, though in a lesser
degree. The masculine desire to obtain, and the delightful consciousness
that he possessed, at least, the tremendous advantage of asking for the
love he craved, roused him from the sweet torpor to which delicious,
dreamy love had inclined him.

"I have thought of Cornelia long enough," he said one delightful summer
morning; "with all my soul I now long to see her. And it is not an
impossible thing I desire. In short, there is some way to compass it."
Then a sudden, invincible persuasion of success came to him; he believed
in his own good fortune; he had a conviction that the very stars
connived with a true lover to work his will. And under this enthusiasm