Page:Between Two Loves.djvu/44

Rh which the wind swayed shadowy masses of thick leaves. The stone walls which bounded it were green with immemorial moss and fern, and fragrant with gadding honeysuckles, and beyond he could see the quiet crofts and pastures where the slow moving cattle were grazing while towards the horizon the undulating country had all the mystery of brooding clouds.

This was a different atmosphere from the noisy mill, and he felt its influence; for as a mother rocks and soothes her child at her breast, so Nature took the troubled man to her still, sweet heart, and he was comforted and knew not how. The last two miles were through the shady beech woods and fine parks of the Aske Manor, and the effect upon Burley's temper was a beneficial one. The man who inherited such a grand old mansion and such rich lands through twelve generations of gentlemen was not one to be rated like a cotton-spinner. He told himself that Aske might have rights peculiarly his own, and that any woman would owe something to the love which had selected her from all the world to share such an honorable position.

Aske had also been peculiarly generous about