"Then you love me still?" The words were uttered in astonishment, and the emotions of unexpected joy almost overpowered him. Do you "I never ceased to love you, Edward. think that I am one to trifle with your heart, or to use it as a plaything for me to triumph by? Never, never. Had you died, or, worse still, had you continued in sinful ways, I could not even then have ceased to love you, though we might have been separated until death. But now I read other things in your face, Edward, and I will be yours-your betrothed—again. Come, let us join the rest. you with joy." There is not one of us but will welcome "Nay, nay, let us stay here for a moment," he cried, as he rose up; "let me realize the joyful sensation which your words have given me; let me sit here, Violet, a few moments, at your feet, and feel the touch of your hand in mine, and look at your face, that I may recover strength again." They sat there in silence, and the thoughts of both recurred to that other scene where they had sat on the great boulder under the shadow of the Alps, and watched the rose-film steal over their white summits on the golden summer eve. It was the same love that still filled their souls-the same love, but more sober, more quiet, more like the love of maturer years, less like the passionate love of boy and girl. It was more of an antumnal love than of old; and, if the departing summer had flung new hues over the forest and the glen, they were the duller hues that recalled to mind the greater glory of the past. It was round a 330 COMMON-LIFE HEROISM. dying year that Autumn was "folding his jeweled arms." Yet, they were happy-very happy, and they felt that, come what might, nothing on earth could part them now. When Kennedy had grown more calm, Violet called for Cyril, and bade him break the fact of Edward's presence to her mother and Julian. The boy bounded off to do her bidding, and, in a few moments, Kennedy was seated among the Homes as one of them. They received him with no simulated affection; Frank and Cyril helped to take away all awkwardness from the meeting, by their high spirits, and when they all sat down on the velvet mosses to their rural meal, every one of them had banished the painful hauntings of the past. Of course Kennedy accompanied them home; they drove back in the quiet evening, and Kennedy sat by Violet's side. He stayed at Ildown till Julian returned to St. Werner's, and, as was natural, he revolved in his mind. continually his future course. At last, he determined to talk it over with Violet, and told her of all his heroic longings for a life of toil and endeavor, if need were, even of banishment and death-all the high thoughts that had filled his heart as he sat alone in the island by Orton-on-the-Sea. "Let us wait," she said, "Edward. God will decide all this for us in time; and, if duty seems to call you to the hard life of missionary or colonist, I am ready to go with you." "But don't you feel yourself, Violet, a kind of common placeness about English life; a silver-slippered THE ISLAND HEART. 381 religion, a pettiness that does not satisfy, a sense of comfort incompatible with the strong desire to do the work which others will not do in the neglected corners of the vineyard?" "No," she answered, smiling; "I am content. • The trivial round, the common task, “True," he said; "well, I must try not to carry ambition into my religion.” “Of course you return to St. Werner's, next autumn ?" He mused long. “Ah, Violet, you cannot conceive how awful to my imagination that place has grown. And to return, after rustication, and live among men who will regard me with galling curiosity, and dons who will look at me sideways, with suspicion-can I ever bear it?" 66 'Why not, Edward? They cannot affect you by their opinion. I heard you say the other day that your heart was becoming an island, and the waters round it broadening every day. If the island itself be beautiful and happy, it need not reck of the outer world." "You are right, Violet. I will return, if need be, and bear all meekly which I have deserved to bear. The one sorrow will be gone," he said, as he drew her nearer to his side, "that drove me into-Yes, you are right. I will go away home to-morrow, when Julian starts, and begin from the very first day to read with all my might. Hitherto I have had only the bitter lessons of Camford; let us see if I cannot gain some of her honors, too." CHAPTER XXXI. BRUCE IN TROUBLE. τηνεί δρύες, ὧδε κύπειρος. THEOCR. Id., i. 106. "Nuda nec arva placent, umbrasque negantia molles, BRUCE, when expelled from St. Werner's, thought very little of his disgrace. It hardly ruffled the calm stream of his self-complacency, and, for some reasons, he was rather glad that it had happened. He did not like Camford; he had never taken to reading, and being thus debarred from all intellectual pleasures, he had grown thoroughly tired of late breakfasts, boating on the muddy Iscam, noisy wines, and interminable whist parties. Moreover, he had made far less sensation at Camford than he had expected. Somehow or other he had a dim consciousness that men saw through him; that his cleverness did not conceal his superficiality, nor his easy manners blind men's eyes to his ungenerous and selfish heart. Even his late phase of popular skepticism was less successful at Camford than it would have been at places of less steady diligence and less sound acquirements. In fact, Bruce imagined that he was by no means appreciated. The sphere was too narrow for him; he was quite sure that in the arena |