On its summit was
the chaise, into which the Doctor and Marble were persuaded to enter,
Lucy preferring to walk. The negress was to proceed in the vehicle
that had been sent for the luggage, and Lucy and I set out, arm and
arm, to walk rather more than a mile in company, and that too without
the presence of a third person. Such an occurrence, under any other
circumstances than those in which we were both placed, would have made
me one of the happiest men on earth; but, in the actual situation in
which I found myself, it rendered me silent and uncomfortable. Not so
with Lucy; ever natural, and keeping truth incessantly before her
eyes, the dear girl took my arm without the least embarrassment, and
showed no sign of impatience, or of doubt. She was sad, but full of a
gentle confidence in her own sincerity and motives.
"This is dear Clawbonny, again!" she exclaimed, after we had walked in
silence a short distance. "How beautiful are the fields, how fresh the
woods, how sweet the flowers! Oh! Miles, a day in such a spot as
this, is worth a year in town!"
"Why, then, do you, who have now so much at your command, pass more
than half your time between the heated bricks of Wall Street, when you
know how happy we should all be to see you, here, among us, again?"
"I have not been certain of this; that has been the sole reason, of my
absence.
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