Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/124

122 Depending vines the shelving caverns screen, And purple clusters blushing through the green; Four limpid fountains from the clefts distil, And every fountain pours a several rill In mazy windings, wandering down the hill, Where blooming meads with verdant greens were crowned, And glowing violets throw odours round." I did not feel the full charm of these lines when I first read them, but I do now. It is with such scenes as these—lovely, lonely, and distant—that I connect his image, not with the false and glittering passages of our daily intercourse. The feverish and tumultuous capital is only the "place où l'on se passe le mieux du bonheur." Will he always love me as he seems to love me now? Why do I say seems? out on such cold suspicion! In the truth of my own heart, I read that of his; and yet there are moments when I doubt even to despair; when the terrible truth of my position forces itself upon the memory, which would fain shut it out for ever. What right have I to rely on the constancy of another, who am false myself? I tremble at the future; what can I, what dare