And Gerard had not yet returned.
The time for a while after his departure had been
comparatively light-hearted and agreeable. Easier in her mind
and for a time busied with the preparations for their journey,
Sybil sate by the open window more serene and cheerful than
for a long period had been her wont. Sometimes she ceased for
a moment from her volume and fell into a reverie of the morrow
and of Mowbray. Viewed through the magic haze of time and
distance, the scene of her youth assumed a character of
tenderness and even of peaceful bliss. She sighed for the
days of their cottage and their garden, when the discontent of
her father was only theoretical, and their political conclaves
were limited to a discussion between him and Morley on the
rights of the people or the principles of society. The bright
waters of the Mowe and its wooded hills; her matin walks to
the convent to visit Ursula Trafford--a pilgrimage of piety
and charity and love; the faithful Harold, so devoted and so
intelligent; even the crowded haunts of labour and suffering
among which she glided like an angel, blessing and blessed;
they rose before her--those touching images of the past--and
her eyes were suffused with tears, of tenderness, not of
gloom.
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