The faintest of breezes wafted in the young people's faces as they
descended the wooden steps of the boarding-house and passed along the
dark, deserted sidewalk of the village street. The noisy dance was soon
left at a distance; how extravagant and unnatural it seemed in
comparison with the deep, sweet night in which they were losing
themselves!
The brightness of the stars, and the wavering peaks and jagged edges of
the northern lights, brought out the shadows of the uneven hills, and
revealed the winding length of downy mist which kept the stream in the
valley warm. Such was the stillness, and the subdued tone of the
landscape, that it seemed unreal--the phantom of a world which had lost
its sunshine, and was mourning for it in gentle melancholy.
The sense of the solitude around them brought the young man and woman
closer to one another. For enjoyment to be, mortally speaking, perfect,
it needs that a soft and dreamy element of sadness should be added to
it; and this was given by the gracious influence of the night. The
darkness, too, encouraged the germs of that mutual reliance,
hopefulness, and trust, which combine to build up the more vital and
profound relations of life. There is a magic mystery and power in it,
which we can laugh at in the sunshine, but whose reality, at times,
forces itself upon us mightily.
As Bressant trod onward, with the warm and lovely woman living and
moving at his side, and clinging to his arm with a dainty pressure, just
perceptible enough to make him wish it were a little closer--it entered
his mind to marvel at the tender change that seemed to have come over
familiar things.
"I've walked often in the night, before," observed he, looking around
him, and then at Cornelia; "on the same road, too; but it never made me
feel as now. It is beautiful." He used the word with a doubtful
intonation, as if unaccustomed to it, and not quite sure whether he were
applying it correctly.
"You speak as if you didn't know what you were talking about!" said
Cornelia, with a round, melodious laugh. "Did you never see or care for
any thing beautiful before this evening?"
"You remember that night in the garden?" asked Bressant, abruptly. "I've
learned a great deal since then. I couldn't understand it at the moment;
I wasn't prepared for it--understand? but I know now--it was beauty--I
saw it and felt it--and it drove me out of myself."
Cornelia was thrilled, half with fear and half with delight. Bressant
spoke with an almost fierce sincerity and earnestness of conviction,
that quite overbore the shield of playful incredulity which woman
instinctively raises on such occasions; they seemed to have crossed, at
one step, the pale of conventionalities; and, sweet and alluring as the
outer wilderness may be, it is wilderness still, and full of sudden
precipices. Besides, the very energy and impetuosity which the young man
showed, suggested the apprehension that the power of his newly-awakened
emotions was greater than his ability to control and manage them.