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.
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