CHAPTER XXV.
MEETING OF OLD FRIENDS.
How much of change lies in a little space!
How soon the spirits leave their youth behind!
The early green forsakes the bough; the flowers,
Nature's more fairy-like and fragile ones,
Droop on the way-side, and the later leaves
Have artifice and culture—so the heart:
How soon its soft spring hours take darker hues!
And hopes, that were like rainbows, melt in shade;
While the fair future, ah! how fair it seemed!
Grows dark and actual.
It was a cold and rainy afternoon as Ethel Churchill sat at the window of their new abode, a house in one of the streets leading from the Strand to the river. It was the day after their arrival, and nothing could well be more gloomy than the view: the pavement was wet, and a yellow mist obscured every object, the passers glided by like phantoms, and the Thames, at
