Shirley

mine.«
    Mr. Moore now sat silent for several minutes. It struck nine o'clock: Sarah entered, and said that Mr. Helstone's servant was come for Miss Caroline.
    »Then the evening is gone already,« she observed; »and it will be long, I suppose, before I pass another here.«
    Hortense had been for some time nodding over her knitting; fallen into a doze now, she made no response to the remark.
    »You would have no objection to come here oftener of an evening?« inquired Robert, as he took her folded mantle from the side-table, where it still lay, and carefully wrapped it round her.
    »I like to come here; but I have no desire to be intrusive. I am not hinting to be asked: you must understand that.«
    »Oh! I understand thee, child. You sometimes lecture me for wishing to be rich, Lina; but if I
were
rich, you should live here always: at any rate, you should live with me wherever my habitation might be.«
    »That would be pleasant; and if you were poor – ever so poor – it would still be pleasant. Good-night, Robert.«
    »I promised to walk with you up to the Rectory.«
    »I know you did; but I thought you had forgotten, and I hardly knew how to remind you, though I wished to do it. But would you like to go? It is a cold night; and, as Fanny is come, there is no necessity –«
    »Here is your muff – don't wake Hortense – come.«
    The half-mile to the Rectory was soon traversed. They parted in the garden without kiss, scarcely with a pressure of hands: yet Robert sent his cousin in excited and joyously troubled. He had been singularly kind to her that day: not in phrase, compliment, profession; but in manner, in look, and in soft and friendly tones.
    For himself, he came home grave, almost morose. As he stood leaning on his own yard-gate, musing in the watery moonlight, all alone – the hushed, dark mill before him, the hill-environed hollow round – he exclaimed, abruptly: –
    »This won't do! There's weakness – there's downright ruin in all this. However,« he added, dropping his voice, »the frenzy is quite temporary. I know it very well: I have had it before. It will be gone to-morrow.«
     

 
Chapter VII
The Curates at Tea
    Caroline Helstone was just eighteen years old; and at eighteen the true narrative of life is yet to be commenced. Before that time, we sit listening to a tale, a marvellous fiction; delightful sometimes, and sad sometimes; almost always unreal. Before that time, our world is heroic; its inhabitants half-divine or semi-demon; its scenes are dream-scenes: darker woods, and stranger hills; brighter skies, more dangerous waters; sweeter flowers, more tempting fruits; wider plains, drearier deserts, sunnier fields than are found in nature, overspread our enchanted globe. What a moon we gaze on before that time! How the trembling of our hearts at her aspect bears witness to its unutterable beauty! As to our sun, it is a burning heaven – the world of gods.
    At that time – at eighteen, drawing near the confines of illusive, void dreams, Elf-land lies behind us, the shores of Reality rise in front. These shores are yet distant: they look so blue, soft, gentle, we long to reach them. In sunshine we see a greenness beneath the azure, as of spring meadows; we catch glimpses of silver lines, and imagine the roll of living waters. Could we but reach this land, we think to hunger and thirst no more; whereas many a wilderness, and often the flood of Death, or some stream of sorrow as cold and almost as black as Death, is to be crossed ere true bliss can be tasted. Every joy that life gives must be earned ere it is secured; and how hardly earned, those only know who have wrestled for great prizes. The heart's blood must gem with red beads the brow of the combatant, before the wreath of victory rustles over it.
    At eighteen, we are not aware of this. Hope, when she smiles on us, and promises happiness to-morrow, is implicitly believed; – Love, when he comes wandering like a lost angel to our door, is at once admitted, welcomed, embraced: his quiver is not seen; if his arrows penetrate, their wound is like a thrill of new life: there are no fears of poison, none of the barb which no leech's hand can extract: that perilous passion – an agony ever in some of its phases; with many, an agony throughout – is believed to be an unqualified good: in short, at eighteen, the school of Experience is to be entered, and her humbling, crushing, grinding, but yet purifying and invigorating lessons are