"I forget it all now,—it has passed away like a cloud; and this meeting seems all the brighter for it, as summer seems all the brighter when contrasted with the wintry snows."
"Yet those snows are sacred to me, Ellen. Do you forget that it was on the snows our love was born: may it resemble them in purity, and not, like them, fade away in summer's sunshine."
"It will not fade,—it cannot; and oh! how shall I ever pay the debt of gratitude to dear Lady Arranmore? I love her as a sister; it was owing to her that all this happiness was mine."
"She deserves your love, Ellen; and I hope you will shortly see her again. Edith and the Marquis join us at the Towers on the day after to-morrow; we have quite a gay assembly there; and I was almost forgetting my chief object in calling here to-day,—which was to ask you all out next week to join our party. I shall take no refusal, Ellen; so tell that to your father when you give him this note," said the Earl, handing her an invitation.
"How kind of you! the country must be looking so pretty now,—the Towers must be in all their beauty."
"They are. After all, no place like home,—when the weather is as propitious as it has been this season,—an important item in this climate. I hear you had charming weather for your tour, and enjoyed it much."
"Oh, lovely! I do not think I saw a cloud hardly the whole time. The Alps were splendid, and we toured the whole of the Oberland; but Leman, blue Lake Leman, is my pet! I shall always look back on the days spent there as the happiest in my life yet; for it was there I met your sister, and there——"
Ellen paused, but the Earl finished her sentence—
"There you found I was still true,—is not that it?"
Ellen blushed assent.