"This is very nice," said Bernard to his cousin. "I don't know anything that could be nicer; but perhaps—"
"I know what you mean," said Lily. "But I shall stay here. There's no touch of romance about any of you. Look at the moon there at the back of the steeple. I don't mean to go in all night." Then she walked off by one of the paths, and her lover went after her.
"Don't you like the moon?" she said, as she took his arm, to which she was now so accustomed that she hardly thought of it as she took it.
"Like the moon?—well; I fancy I like the sun better. I don't quite believe in moonlight. I think it does best to talk about when one wants to be sentimental."
"Ah; that is just what I fear. That is what I say to Bell when I tell her that her romance will fade as the roses do. And then I shall have to learn that prose is more serviceable than poetry, and that the mind is better than the heart, and—and that money is better than love. It's all coming, I know; and yet I do like the moonlight."
"And the poetry,—and the love?"
"Yes. The poetry much, and the love more. To be loved by you is sweeter even than any of my dreams,—is better than all the poetry I have read."
"Dearest Lily," and his unchecked arm stole round her waist.
"It is the meaning of the moonlight, and the essence of the poetry," continued the impassioned girl. "I did not know then why I liked such things, but now I know. It was because I longed to be loved."
"And to love."