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The air throbbed, as always, with the sound of bells, but it was a mellower and opener sound than before, and looking at the purple bulk of one of those hills which seem to rest like clouds at the end of each avenue in Florence, Colville saw that it was clear of snow. He was going up through Via Cavour to find Mr. Waters and propose a walk, but he met him before he had got half-way to San Marco.

The headstones stood forth whitely against the dark grass and yews, their brightness being repeated on the white smock-frocks of some of the labourers, and in a mellower, ruddier form on their faces and hands, on those of the grinning gargoyles, and on other salient stonework of the weather-beaten church in the background.

The "truculent and sarcastic splendor" of his hyperboles need not blind us to his real literary excellencies, such as clearness, candor, vigor of phrase, freshness of idea. A testy, rugged, "difficult" person was John Adams, but he grew mellower with age, and his latest letters and journals are full of whimsical charm. John Adams's cousin Samuel was not precisely a charming person.

It was as if a mellower spirit hovered about the old giant knob resting there, watching with its head all venerably gray, though the sunlight ere it faded was elfishly splashing the shadow with golden green, and little flecks of crimson and orange came flashing through the tangle of branches as they passed, making light mockery.

The intervening years had brought an added gentleness to her character; they had made mellower her dear face, now ruddy and round, though wrinkled. Folks said she had looked happier and happier, and had talked less and less, as the time wore on. It had become a saying in Wythburn that the dame of Shoulthwaite Moss was never seen without a smile, and never heard to say more than "God bless you!"

Knowledge has become his most trusted instrument, and democratic sympathy with human life his most cherished guide. With such a guide and with such an instrument, he will before long set about to mold his life in accordance with those mellower ideals which have grown in his heart during his long pilgrimage.

"Yet," I resumed musingly, and I spoke rather to myself than to my companion, "yet, how happy do they seem! what a revival of our Arcadian dreams are the flute and the dance, the glossy trees all glowing in the autumn sunset, the green sod, and the murmuring rill, and the buoyant laugh, startling the satyr in his leafy haunts; and the rural loves which will grow sweeter still when the sun has set, and the twilight has made the sigh more tender and the blush of a mellower hue!

Rexford and Sophia had been sitting sewing, as they often did, under a tree near the house. Sophia had mused and stitched. Then there came a time when her hands fell idle, and she looked off at the scene before her. It was the hour when the sun has set, and the light is not less than daylight but mellower.

Weddings between elderly persons, hitherto unable to make up their mind, or having, perchance, made it up all wrong on a first occasion; inveterate old maids and bachelors, or widowers who thought to mourn for ever; people who have found their heart perhaps a little late in the day; but, who knows? shrivelled as it is, perhaps, but the mellower, and of more enduring, more essential sweetness.

Her beautiful cheek is covered with a blush, her eye grows mellower, and her heart beats with a new, and till now unfelt passion. Few minutes pass ere she is in his arms, and has given and received the kiss of affection.