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Fairfax," I observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adele to bed. "Well, is he?" "I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt." "True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities of temper, allowance should be made." "Why?"

They brought back minute reports of the appearance and condition of the bride elect, in the various stages of her enrobement and ornamentation; and there was not a woman in the house who did not, every ten minutes, have the image of Helen Wilkeson stamped on her mind as accurately as the changeful phases of an eclipse on the photographer's plate.

All this talk Moses translated, and embellished, to the native porters with the solemn sincerity of a true and thorough-paced hypocrite. He had scarcely finished, and was watching with immense delight the changeful aspect of their whitey-green faces, when another volcanic fit came on, and the deep-toned roar of the coming explosion was heard.

For Helen herself, she was prey to a host of changeful emotions. At one time she accused herself bitterly of having been the cause of the return of his illness; the next a gush of gladness would swell her heart at the thought that now she had him at least safer for a while, and that he might die and so escape the whole crowd of horrible possibilities.

"Yes," she said, "and don't you find it difficult to imagine the times when this little pretty country was treated by its folk as if it had been an ugly characterless waste, with no delicate beauty to be guarded, with no heed taken of the ever fresh pleasure of the recurring seasons, and changeful weather, and diverse quality of the soil, and so forth? How could people be so cruel to themselves?"

With what anxiety he watched her footsteps! with what idolatry he hung upon her words! with what unspeakable and yearning emotion he gazed upon the changeful eloquence of her cheek. Now that Walter was gone, he almost took up his abode at the manor-house.

Abra was ready ere we called her name, And though we called another, Abra came. It was my task each day to visit the various families assembled in our town, and when the weather permitted, I was glad to prolong my ride, and to muse in solitude over every changeful appearance of our destiny, endeavouring to gather lessons for the future from the experience of the past.

Would you have him to fan the flies from my lady's face while she sleeps, to carry her train while she walks, to hand her trencher when she feeds, to ride before her on horseback, to walk after her on foot, to sing when she lists, and to be silent when she bids? a very weathercock, which, though furnished in appearance with wings and plumage, cannot soar into the air cannot fly from the spot where it is perched, but receives all its impulse, and performs all its revolutions, obedient to the changeful breath of a vain woman?

The air was full of blithesome sounds. Overhead the sky-larks sang in jocund rivalry, mounting higher and higher as if they would have beaten their wings against the sun: the bees made the heather and the thyme musical as they flew from flower to flower, and the tinkling of the running rills was like the symphony to a changeful theme.

Yet, powerfully as he resisted them, his awakened senses continued to demand their rights, and, while he closed his eyes and pressed his brow against the base of the altar covered with black cloth, changeful images of happier days rose before him. He, too, had rejoiced in a vigorous, strong, and pliant body.