The Star Dreamer by Egerton Castle

. Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young. -TENNYSON (_Gardener's Daughter_).

Within Bindon house the next ten days were as uneventful as those that had preceded this night of emotional trouble; days similar in routine, in outward tranquillity. But how unlike in colour, in atmosphere! It was as if thunder-clouds had chased all the summer peace; as if brooding skies had taken the place of radiance and laughing blue; as if close mists enshrouded the earth, robbing the woods of living light and shade, dulling the tints of flower and turf, contracting the horizon. The former days had been days of many-hued hope; these now were days of drab suspense. And ever and anon, in the listening stillness, there came upon Ellinor's inner senses, as from behind hiding hills, the far-off mutter of a gathering storm.