Here
still lingered the halo of the sweet departed summer,--here still
grew the familiar wild-flowers which THE FIRST Richard Hilton
had gathered. This was the Paradise in which the Adam of her heart
had dwelt, before his fall. Her resignation and submission
entitled her to keep those pure and perfect memories, though she
was scarcely conscious of their true charm. She did not dare to
express to herself, in words, that one everlasting joy of woman's
heart, through all trials and sorrows--"I have loved, I have been
beloved."
On the last "First-day" before their departure, she walked down the
meadows to the lonely brake between the hills. It was the early
spring, and the black buds of the ash had just begun to swell. The
maples were dusted with crimson bloom, and the downy catkins of the
swamp-willow dropped upon the stream and floated past her, as
once the autumn leaves. In the edges of the thickets peeped forth
the blue, scentless violet, the fairy cups of the anemone, and the
pink-veined bells of the miskodeed. The tall blooms through which
the lovers walked still slept in the chilly earth; but the sky
above her was mild and blue, and the remembrance of the day came
back to her with a delicate, pungent sweetness, like the perfume of
the trailing arbutus in the air around her.
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