"They have not made any change, you see, Lucy: I did not give orders: It was my mother's chamber during her short span of residence here. The next, that little dressing-room of yours, she made her upstairs sitting-room. Perhaps you would like to have this made into a
sitting-room for yourself."
"Nay, Karl, if I want to sit upstairs, there's my dressing-room. We will let this be as it is. Is that Foxwood?" she added, pointing to the roofs of houses and a church-spire in the distance.
"Yes, that's Foxwood."
"And what are all those trees over the way?" turning her finger rather towards the right: in fact to the Maze. "There are some chimneys amidst them. Is it a house?"
"Yes."
"A gentleman's house? It must be pleasant to have neighbours so near, if they are nice people. Is it occupied, Karl!"
"I--I fancy so. The truth is, Lucy,"--breaking into rather a forced laugh--"that I am as yet almost as much a a stranger here as yourself. Shall I call Aglaé? I'm sure you must want to get your bonnet off."
"Aglaé's there, you know; I am going to her. But first of
all"--clasping her arms fondly round him and lifting her sweet face to his--"let me thank you for this beautiful home. Oh, Karl! how happy we shall be in it."
"God willing!" he answered in a beseeching tone of exquisite pain. And, as he held her to him in the moment's tenderness, his chest heaved with a strange emotion.
"How he loves me," thought Lucy, passing to her own rooms. For she put the emotion down to that. "I wonder if there ever was such love before in the world as his and mine? Aglaé, I must wear white to-day."