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CHAPTER XXXII.
"That day, the first of a re-union,
Which was to teem with lip communion."
Wordsworth.
Evelyn was soon in the depths of the forest after his parting with his mistress. If her image did not entirely occupy his mind, it at least reigned paramount over every other conjured up by the scene. And herein lies the difference between the love of man and that of woman. In his active and hurried career, it is impossible that love should hold the lonely and undivided empire it does over an existence of which it is at once the occupation and the resource. It is in solitude that the imagination exercises its gigantic power; and where are a woman's feelings nurtured but in solitude? The one passes so few hours alone, the other passes so many. What impassioned thoughts, how much of that poetry which first creates and then colours the future, haunt the lonely morn-
