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ETHEL CHURCHILL.
267

it wanted no confirmation of words. Words are for the worldly, the witty, the practised; not for the simple, the timid, and the impassioned. It never occurred to her to question of the future: every thing was absorbed in the intense happiness of the present. She saw him go, unfettered by a vow, unbound by aught of promise; yet his change never crossed her mind. She was sad to part with him—very sad; it was the sunshine past from her daily existence: but the sadness was unmixed with fear. He had never said that he would write, yet she fully relied upon his writing; simply because she felt that, in his place, she would have written.

Norbourne was very wrong not to write. True, he was so situated that an explanation was impossible; still a letter would have been a consolation, and she would so readily have believed whatever he had written. He said to himself, "How can I write? what shall I write? It is impossible to tell her on whose sweet face I have gazed till, though the soft eyes were never raised, she knew that I could