with years; but, at the present time, they conveyed only one expression. The heart was in the eyes; and these, fixed on Ethel Churchill, were blind to all but the beloved face which, alone they cared to see. To Norbourne the whole world had one division, the place where she was, from that where she was not.
Ethel returned not his gaze; but she was not on that account insensible of it. Natural as it may seem to look straight forward, her eyes tried every direction save that in which they might fall on those of Courtenaye. Her part in the trio was nearly nominal, and yet no bird singing in the sunshine, seemed ever to sing more from the fulness of a joyous heart. Her voice, when you caught it, was, indeed, "the very echo of happy thoughts;" and smile after smile parted her small and childish mouth. Her beauty was of that kind which is our ideal of a cherub's—rounded, innocent, and happy. The long golden hair—for she was too young yet to have it dressed after the prevailing mode—absolutely sparkled in the light; while her skin realised the old poet's exquisite delineation:
