“I was thinking, dear—suppose I should become domestic!


BOOK VI. THE CORDS ARE TIGHTENED

She had been reading in the little cabin, and a hush had fallen upon them.

“Yes, thou art gone! And round me too the night In ever-nearing circle weaves her shade.”

“Gone!” she said, and smiled sadly. “Where is he gone?”

And she turned the page and read again—

“But Thyrsis nevermore we swains shall see;
See him come back, and cut a smoother reed,
And blow a strain the world at last shall heed—
For Time, not Corydon, hath conquer’d thee!”

Then, after a pause, she added, “How often I have remembered those words! And how pitiful they are, when I remember them!”