Chapter CL: Book XIII: The Masters of the Snare

_They stood upon the porch of the little cabin, listening to the silence of the night.

“How far away it all seems!” she said--

“How many a dingle on the loved hill-side
Hath since our day put by
The coronals of that forgotten time!”

“It makes one feel old,” he said--“like the coming of the night!”

“The night!” she repeated, and went on--

“I feel her finger light
Laid pausefully upon life’s headlong train;--
The foot less prompt to meet the morning dew,
The heart less bounding at emotion new,
And hope once crush’d less quick to spring again!”_