“It is singular,” said Lawrence, “the feeling, that ‘all this has been before,’ that comes over one at times. I have heard it expressed by a great many people.”
“Have you, indeed, ever had this feeling?” asked Isabella.
“Certainly,” replied Lawrence; “I say to myself sometimes, ‘I have been through all this before!’ and I can almost go on to tell what is to come next,–it seems so much a part of my past experience.”
“It is strange it should be so with you,–and with you too,” she said, turning to Otho.
“Perhaps we are all more alike than we have thought,” said Otho.
Otho’s mother appeared, and the conversation took another turn.
Isabella did not go to the Willows again, until all the Lester family were summoned there to a large party that Mrs. Blanchard gave. She called it a house-warming, although she had been in the house some time. It was a beautiful evening. A clear moonlight made it as brilliant outside on the lawn as the lights made the house within. There was a band of music stationed under the shrubbery, and those who chose could dance. Those who were more romantic wandered away down the shaded walks, and listened to the dripping of the fountain.
Lawrence and Isabella returned from a walk through the grounds, and stopped a moment on the terrace in front of the house. Just then a dark cloud appeared in the sky, threatening the moon. The wind, too, was rising, and made a motion among the leaves of the trees.