And then they went to bed, and to a sleep over which brooded the indefinite sensation of a great unknown joy;--that rare heavenly sleep which only comes once or twice or thrice in life, on occasions such as this.
He was up early next morning, and, opening his window, leaned out with his hands among the green vine-leaves which encircled it.

The garden looked beautiful as ever, and he promised himself an early enjoyment of those currants which hung in ruby clusters over the walls.

Everything was bathed in the dewy balm of summer morning, and he felt very happy as, with his little spaniel frisking round him, he visited the great Newfoundland in his kennel, and his old pet the pony in the stable.

He had barely finished his rounds when breakfast was ready, and he once more met the home-circle from which he had been separated for a year.
And yet over all his happiness hung a sense of change and half melancholy; they were not changed but _he_ was changed.

Mrs.Trevor, and Fanny, and Vernon were the same as ever, but over _him_, had come an alteration of feeling and circumstance; an unknown or half-known _something_ which cast a shadow between them and him, and sometimes made him half shrink and start as he met their loving looks.