Winter Evening Tales

by Amelia E. Barr

"Shall we ride?" he said, just touching her fingers, and looking at her with eyes and face glowing with a wonderful happiness.

Alas, Christine could think of mamma, and of morning calls and of what people would say. But Franz overruled every scruple; he conquered mamma, and laughed at society; and before Christine had decided which of her costumes was most becoming, Franz was waiting at the door.

How they rattled up the avenue and through the park! How the green branches waved in triumph, and how the birds sang and gossiped about them! By the time they arrived at Mount St. Vincent they had forgotten they were mortal. Then the rest in the shady gallery, and the subsidence of love's exaltation into love's silent tender melancholy, were just as blissful.

They came slowly home, speaking only in glances and monosyllables, but just before they parted Franz said, "I have been waiting thirty years for you, Christine; to-day my life has blossomed."

And though Christine did not make any audible answer, he thought her blush sufficient; besides, she took the lilies from her throat and gave them to him.

Such a dream of love is given only to the few whom the gods favor. Franz must have stood high in their grace, for it lasted through many sweet weeks and months for him. He followed the Strombergs to Newport, and laid his whole life down at Christine's feet. There was no definite engagement between them, but every one understood that would come as surely as the end of the season.

Money matters and housekeeping must eventually intrude themselves, but the romance and charm of this one summer of life should be untouched. And Franz was not anxious at all on this score. His father, a shrewd business man, had early seen that his son was a poet and a dreamer. "It is not the boy's fault," he said to his partner, "he gets it from his grandfather, who was always more out of this world than in it."

So he wisely allowed Franz to follow his natural tastes, and contented himself with carefully investing his fortune in such real estate and securities as he believed would insure a safe, if a slow increase. He had bought wisely, and Franz's income was a certain and handsome one, with a tendency rather to increase than decrease, and quite sufficient to maintain Christine in all the luxury to which she had been accustomed.

So when he returned to the city he intended to speak to Mr. Stromberg. All he had should be Christine's and her father should settle the matter just as he thought best for his daughter. In a general way this was understood by all parties, and everyone seemed inclined to sympathize with the happy feeling which led the lovers to deprecate during these enchanted days any allusion which tended to dispel the exquisite charm of their young lives' idyl.

Perhaps it would have been better if they had remembered the ancient superstition and themselves done something to mar their perfect happiness. Polycrates offered his ring to avert the calamity sure to follow unmitigated pleasure or success, and Franz ought, perhaps, to have also made an effort to propitiate his envious Fate.