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And she too—that beloved child, was gone— Life's last and loveliest link. There was her place Vacant beside the hearth—he almost dreamed He saw her still; so present was her thought. Then some slight thing reminded him how far The distance was that parted her and him. Fear dwells around the absent—and our love For such grows all too anxious, too much filled With vain regrets, and fond inquietudes: We know not love till those we love depart.

above a month had elapsed since the little party were seated on the sloping lawn; and yet that short space had sufficed to change the position of all assembled in the pleasant quiet of that evening. In the gloomy library of Meredith Place is seated an old man, surrounded by books, which he is too weary to read, and by chemical apparatus which he has not spirits to use. Till she went, Sir Jasper knew not how