and to the uttermost verge of her strength,
body and mind.

While Magdalen was still quivering with
excitement, like a young war-horse at the
first sound of the trumpet, Paul came to her
to pay her his evening visit. Ever loving,
ever gentle and even feminine in his ways,
he was more so to-day than usual. He wore
an expression of thought and love so earnest,
so unearthly, that he might have been a spirit
or an angel come down to teach godliness
and purity. But there was nothing which
could teach them management or strength.
His brown hair parted in the middle and
falling quite to his shoulders in rich
undulating tresses, his small, slender figure, his
white hands, with those taper fingers and
pink nails which speak the idealist, were all
so womanly, that he might have been a
woman dressed in man's clothes for all there
was of masculine or powerful in his mind
or person. Magdalen, on the contrary, tall,
well-formed, perfectly organised, with
well-shaped but rather large hands — the hand
of a useful and practical person — resolute
though quiet, and with that calm steady
manner, different from coldness, which is
usually the expression of strength, — standing
there, nerved for a deadly combat, her
nostrils dilated, her chest heaving, her hair
pushed back from her broad full forehead,
and the eyes flashing beneath their straight
dark brows, — Magdalen, full of the passion
and power of actual life, looked like a
beautiful Amazon by the side of a young shepherd-
boy. Certainly she did not look like the
weak woman needing the protection of his
arm, as is the received fable respecting men
and women, whatsoever their characteristics.

"Magdalen, how glorious you look to-day!"
said Paul, with fervour, taking her hand.

She looked at him quietly enough; but
with a certain distraction, a certain indifference,
which could not be reduced to words,
but was easy to be felt by one who loved;
and her hand lay passively in his.

"Come and sit by the window," he said,
we have so few days of sunshine left us now,
so few moments of beauty before the winter,
that we ought to make the most of them
while they are here."

For it was the late autumn now, when the
sunsets are so grand and the cloud scenery
so glorious.

"You know, Magdalen, how I love to
watch the sunset with you," Paul went on to
say, "how I love to see the clouds pass
through the sky, to read their vague words of
promise, to shape from them bright auguries
of the future, to feel that they are words
passing between us, speaking to each of our
love more beautifully than even loving words
falling on the ear. And, when I turn and see
your face lighted up with the same thoughts
as have been burning in my heart; when I feel
the glory of your great love round me, then,
Magdalen, I feel that I have been prophetic in
my hope; an enthusiast but a seer as well.
And you, Magdalen, do you not also dream of
our future — of that beautiful future, once far
off like a faint star on the horizon, but now a
glorious temple, on the threshold of which our
feet are already set ? Do you never think of
the time when sacred words shall add their
sanctity also to our sacred love ?— when the
grand name of wife shall enclose and crown
your life? Do no great loving thoughts burn
through your heart as through mine,
Magdalen, and seem to lift you up from earth to
heaven?"

"Yes, Paul," said Magdalen, dreamily.
"Oh, yes! I often think of it." She spoke
as if she thought of other things.

Paul looked at her wistfully for a moment;
then, drawing the low stool on which he sat
nearer — for it was his fancy always to sit at
her feet — and pressing that unanswering
hand yet more tenderly, caressing it as a
child, with whom caresses cure all ills. Yet
the fingers coldly fell on his, which throbbed
in every nerve. He flung back the hair from
his eyes, and with a visible effort looked
up joyously as before,

"O, Magdalen!" he continued, "I cannot
tell, even to myself, and still less to you,
how much I love you; how my whole life
and heart and soul are bound up in you,
and how my virtue and inspiration own you
also for their source! If you were taken
from me, Magdalen, I should die as flowers
die when they are cut from the stalk. I
seem to draw my very being from you;
and to have no strength and no joy but
that which you give me. Are you glad,
Magdalen, that I love you so much?"

"Yes, Paul," said Magdalen wearily, "I
am very glad."

"I feel, Magdalen, that we shall do such
great things in life together! — that by your
inspiration I shall be, in art, what no man of
my time or generation has been, and what I
could not have been without you. You are
so beautiful, so glorious! O, what a great
and solemn joy it is to me that you have
brightened across my path — that I have had
the grand task of leading and directing your
mind, and that I have brought you out into
the light from the mental shadow in which
you formerly lived! What glorious lessons
we shall give the world together! What
an example we shall offer, for all men to
follow and walk by!"

"What are we to do, Paul?" said Magdalen
not knowing exactly what to say; but
seeing that her lover waited for an answer.

"Can you ask what we are to do? can you
now, after all that I have said, be doubtful
of our mission?" cried Paul.

"Why you know, Paul, you are never very
definite," said Magdalen; who, having dashed
into the middle of the truth unawares, was
obliged to make the best of it now. She
did not know where she got the courage
to speak as she did; but it seemed to her an