CHAPTER XIII.
"I am too happy!" exclaimed Isabella, as she paced up and down the gravel walk of the inn where they stopped to breakfast on their return to London, having stepped into the garden while waiting for Mr. Glentworth. It was one of those delicious mornings, "when but to breathe is pleasant;" sunshine lay golden on every leaf, and the beds were filled with common flowers, lovelier for their being common—sheltered by a hedge of mingled honeysuckle and wild rose, stood some hives of bees, the sound of whose pliant wings came from the kitchen-garden beyond, now in the first fragrant blossom of the bean. The low, clipped hawthorn hedge shewed, on the other side, a green and winding lane, which divided the fertile meadows, some of which still swept in emerald luxuriance, while others were sweet with the newly-mown grass. A church crowned the hill, whose square tower was clothed with the ivy of a century. Isabella walked on with a keen feeling of enjoyment, and soon began to pick some of the flowers with which the garden was so profusely stocked; it was only within the last few weeks that she had known the pleasure of gathering a nosegay for herself.
