Page:Twice-Told Tales (1851) vol 2.djvu/255

 heaviness of her heart, the Lily drooped her head and sat down on the summit of a knoll, repeating, 'Where in this world shall we build our Temple?'

'Ah! have you already asked yourselves that question?' said their companion, his shaded features growing even gloomier with the smile that dwelt on them; 'yet there is a place, even in this world, where ye may build it.'

While the old man spoke, Adam Forrester and Lilias had carelessly thrown their eyes around, and perceived that the spot where they had chanced to pause, possessed a quiet charm, which was well enough adapted to their present mood of mind. It was a small rise of ground, with a certain regularity of shape, that had perhaps been bestowed by art; and a group of trees, which almost surrounded it, threw their pensive shadows across and far beyond, although some softened glory of the sunshine found its way there. The ancestral mansion, wherein the lovers would dwell together, appeared on one side, and the ivied church, where they were to worship, on another. Happening to cast their eyes on the ground, they smiled, yet with a sense of wonder, to see that a pale lily was growing at their feet.

'We will build our Temple here,' said they, simultaneously, and with an indescribable conviction, that they had at last found the very spot.

Yet, while they uttered this exclamation, the young man and the Lily turned an apprehensive glance at their dreary associate, deeming it hardly possible that some tale of earthly affliction should not make those precincts loathsome, as in every former case. The