The nature of Juliet Meredith was true and trusting—­but in respect of her mother she had been sown in weakness, and she was not yet raised in strength.  Because of his wife, Captain Meredith had more than once had to exchange regiments.  But from him Juliet had inherited a certain strength of honest purpose, which had stood him in better stead than the whole sum of his gifts and acquirements, which was by no means despicable.

Late one lovely evening in the early summer, they sat together in the dusky parlor of the cottage, with the window to the garden open.  The sweetest of western airs came in, with a faint scent chiefly of damp earth, moss, and primroses, in which, to the pensive imagination, the faded yellow of the sunset seemed to bear a part.

“I am sorry to say we must shut the window, Miss Meredith,” said the doctor, rising.  “You must always be jealous of the night air.  It will never be friendly to you.”

“What enemies we have all about us!” she returned with a slight shiver, which Faber attributed to the enemy in question, and feared his care had not amounted to precaution.  “It is strange,” she went on, “that all things should conspire, or at least rise, against ’the roof and crown of things,’ as Tennyson calls us.  Are they jealous of us?”

“Clearly, at all events, we are not at home amidst them—­not genuinely so,” admitted the doctor.

“And yet you say we are sprung of them?” said Juliet.

“We have lifted ourselves above them,” rejoined the doctor, “and must conquer them next.”

“And until we conquer them,” suggested Juliet, “our lifting above them is in vain?”

“For we return to them,” assented Faber; and silence fell.—­“Yes,” he resumed, “it is sad.  The upper air is sweet, and the heart of man loves the sun;—­”

“Then,” interrupted Juliet, “why would you have me willing to go down to the darkness?”

“I would not have you willing.  I would have you love the light as you do.  We can not but love the light, for it is good; and the sorrow that we must leave it, and that so soon, only makes it dearer.  The sense of coming loss is, or ought to be, the strongest of all bonds between the creatures of a day.  The sweetest, saddest, most entrancing songs that love can sing, must be but variations on this one theme.—­’The morning is clear; the dew mounts heavenward; the odor spreads; the sun looks over the hill; the world breaks into laughter:  let us love one another!  The sun grows hot, the shadow lies deep; let us sit in it, and remember; the sea lies flashing in green, dulled with purple; the peacock spreads his glories, a living garden of flowers; all is mute but the rush of the stream:  let us love one another!  The soft evening draws nigh; the dew is coming down again; the air is cool, dusky, and thin; it is sweeter than the morning; other words of death gleam out of the deepening sky; the birds close their wings and hide their heads, for death is near:  let us love one another!  The night is come, and there is no morrow; it is dark; the end is nigh; it grows cold; in the darkness and the cold we tremble, we sink; a moment and we are no more; ah! ah, beloved! let us love, let us cleave to one another, for we die!’”