It did not strike her that Mrs.
Thornburgh was more flighty and more ebullient than ever; that the vicar's wife kissed her at odd times, and with a quite unwonted effusion; or that Agnes and Rose, when they were in the wild heart of the mountains, or wandering far and wide in search of sticks for a picnic fire, showed a perfect genius for avoiding Mr.Elsmere, whom both of them liked, and that in consequence his society almost always fell to her.

Nor did she ever analyze what would have been the attraction of those walks to her without that tall figure at her side, that bounding step, that picturesque impetuous talk.

There are moments when nature throws a kind of heavenly mist and dazzlement round the soul it would fain make happy.

The soul gropes blindly on; if it saw its way it might be timid and draw back, but kind powers lead it genially onward through a golden darkness.
Meanwhile if she did not know herself, she and Elsmere learned with wonderful quickness and thoroughness to know each other.

The two households so near together, and so isolated from the world besides, were necessarily in constant communication.