De Vere would sometimes start when he remembered the uncertain tenure of their present state; but conscience, like a child, is soon lulled to sleep; and habit is our idea of eternity. Yet every hour Rebecca became dearer to him; and his few and short absences only brought him to her side with more perfect appreciation and more apprehensive tenderness.
He had now been away for nearly a week, but was expected home that very evening. Who does not know the restlessness of an anticipated arrival? Rebecca wandered from room to room; till at last not even the ingenuity of affection could devise any arrangement or alteration further, that might catch the eye or please the taste of De Vere. It was a lovely afternoon, one of those when autumn atones for the brevity of its days by their beauty; and she walked out, sometimes absorbed in her own thoughts, then again gazing, with a pleasure which half arose from herself, on the country round. Some of the trees yet retained the deep green of their foliage, others wore the brown, purple, and yellow, which, like the bright-hued banners of an army, are the heralds of destruction. A few late flowers were still seen, but their blossoms were fragile and scentless; yet the eye dwelt tenderly upon them—they were the last. Rebecca had proceeded farther than she had proposed, but the sight of a clump of old yews drew her on—they grew beside her father's grave. More
