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CHAPTER XXV.
"I feel thy tears—I feel thy breath,
I meet thy fond look still;
Keen is the strife of love and death!"
Mrs. Hemans.
It was one of those bright mornings which unite the softness of spring with the warmth and glow of summer. The sunshine flung its own gladness over all; every rippling brook ran in light; and the deep blue of the sky was made yet deeper by a few white clouds floating along in snowy flakes. The greenwood glade was the only chamber for such a noon-tide, and the Carraras wandered forth. They soon reached the solitary dell where Rufus's stone marks how a random shot quelled the pride of the haughty Norman.
Never place made such accident appear more probable. The trees grow thickly and irregularly round, and the silvery stems of the ash-trees glisten so as to dazzle the steadiest eye. A rude stone is carved with half-obliterated characters;
