The Clives of Burcot by Hesba Stretton

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. The time I had allotted for Mr. Cliye's sojourn was only four days. He made the most of them; calling me up in the very prime of the morning, while the dew-drops glistened upon the wiry heather of the hill-side; keeping me out in the deep recesses of the narrow valleys, until the moon rose...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. The time I had allotted for Mr. Cliye's sojourn was only four days. He made the most of them; calling me up in the very prime of the morning, while the dew-drops glistened upon the wiry heather of the hill-side; keeping me out in the deep recesses of the narrow valleys, until the moon rose rebukingly over the brow of the mountains, and cast pale gleams upon the black surface of the rocks, and the dark, still waters of the tarns. But there was no longer anything to fear, even in the desolate places where I had shuddered with awe in the glare of the noon-day sun. The valleys were no longer lonely, nor the over-haniging crags threatening. All the solitary mountains were peopled, for we were among them. It was all new to me?these unclouded, perfeet, palmy days, which saw the dawn of a new morning of love, like the warm glow of a brilliant sunrise under the steadfast rays of the morning star. I was amazed but not disturbed at it. It was this which had been lacking, when Mr. Clive, reading my heart with eyes that would not be blinded, pronounced it untouched by love. I no more talked the first, and the most volubly, yet again and again I was on the point of saying to him how well and thoroughly he had known me in that past time. But Mr. Clive never spoke of love, though he talked of his future life as one who was entering into a long-anticipated happiness. He was lying upon the soft sward on the evening of the Monday, for he said he should not start on his ride across the country until after night-fall, his head resting upon the folds of my dress. His dark face was upturned to the sky with a smile upon it which still partook of something akin to gravity and gloom, though both were fast passing away from the expression of his features. We had been silent for some time, ..