She introduced me to the friends who surrounded her, and wished to give me a seat near her; but Ernest resisted the movement, and with a smiling bow passed on.
"I am not disposed to release you quite so soon," said he, passing out into the piazza. "I see very plainly that if I relinquish my position it will not be easy to secure it again. I am delighted. I am charmed, Gabriella, to see that you have the firmness to resist, as well as the sensibility to feel. I am delighted, too, to see you in the only livery youth and innocence should wear in a festal scene like this. I abhor the gaudy tinselry which loads the devotees of fashion, indicative of false tastes and false principles; but white and pearls remind me of every thing pure and holy in nature. In the Bible we read of the white robes of angels and saints. Who ever dreamed of clothing them, in imagination, in dark or party-colored garments? In mythology, the graces, the nymphs, and the muses are represented in snowy garments. In spotless white the bride is led to the marriage shrine, and in white she is prepared for the last sublime espousals. Do you know," added he, suddenly changing the theme, as if conscious he was touching upon something too solemn, "why I selected the scarlet geranium for one of the blossoms of your bouquet? The first time I saw you, it glowed in the darkness of your hair like coral in the ocean's heart."
While he was speaking he broke a sprig from the bouquet and placed it in a wave of my hair, behind the band of pearls.
"Earth and ocean bring you their tribute," said he, and "heaven too," he added; for as we passed by the pillars, a moon-beam glided in and laid its silver touch on my brow.
"It is Edith's hand that thus adorned me," I answered, unwilling he should believe I had been consulting my own ambitious taste. "Had I been left to myself, I should have sought no ornament but these beautiful flowers, doubly precious for the feelings of kindness and compassion that consecrated their mission."
"Compassion, Gabriella! I should as soon think of compassionating the star that shines brightest in the van of night. Compassion looks down; kindness implies an equal ground; admiration looks up with the gaze of the astronomer and the worship of the devotee."
"You forget I am but a simple, village rustic. Such exaggerated compliments would suit better the brilliant dames of the city. I would rather a thousand times you would say, 'Gabriella, I do feel kindly towards you,' than utter any thing so formal, and apparently so insincere."
I was really hurt. I thought he was mocking my credulity, or measuring the height and depth of my girlish vanity. I did not want to be compared to a star, a lone and distant star, nor to think of him as an astronomer gazing up at me with telescopic eye. My heart was overflowing with gentle, natural thoughts. I wanted human sympathy, not cold and glittering compliments.
"And do you expect to hear the language of nature here, with the buzz of empty tongues and the echo of unmeaning laughs in the ear; where, if a word of sentiment were over-heard, it would be bandied from lip to lip with hollow mockery? Come with me into the garden, where the flowers blush in their folded leaves, beneath the love-light of yon gentle moon, where the stilly dews whisper sweet thoughts to the listening heart, and I will tell you what I have learned in Grandison Place, under the elm tree's shade, by the flower girl in the library, and from a thousand sources of which you have never dreamed."
He took the hand which rested lightly on his arm, and drawing it closer to his side led the way to the steps of the piazza. I had dreamed of a moment like this in the golden reveries of romance, and imagined it a foretaste of heaven, but now I trembled and hesitated like the fearful fluttering spirit before the opening gates of paradise. I dared not yield to the almost irresistible temptation. No figures were gliding along the solitary paths, no steps were brushing away the dew-stars that had fallen from the sky. We should be alone in the moonlight solitude; but the thoughts of Mrs. Linwood and of Edith would find us out.