soothed herself with the belief that the workings of her soul were still known to him,—that her regret and her despondency were but the needful preparation for that other sphere, where now her only remaining hope was garnered.
There are some moods which are singularly profitless; and such is that of allowing the thoughts to wander into combinations of past events with creations never likely to occur. This was the state of Francesca's mind. She employed herself in inventing situations, imagining conversations, recalling facts long since forgotten, in utter waste of the imagination. Ah! the weight of actual existence forces us to dream an unreal one.
It was growing late, for one pale pure star trembled on the verge of the horizon, while the rosy clouds melted away before its calm, clear light, like a spiritual influence refining the passionate hues which are of earth and earth's vapours. The moon, too, was rising—at first, white, like frosted silver; but soon brightening into her own peculiar and lucid radiance.
Francesca passed slowly into the forest—now with the boughs closing over her head, and then opening into a glen flooded with moonlight, whose only tenants were the deer crouching amid the fern. Even her soft step startled them; up sprung the
