The Poetry of the Dormitory! It is an inviting but too delicate a subject for our rough hands. Do not the very words call up a vision? By the light of the stars we see a lovely head resting on a downy pillow; the bloom of the rose is on that young cheek, and the half-parted lips murmur as in a dream: “Edward!” Love is lying light at her heart, and its fairy wand is showing her visions. May her dreams be happy! “Edward!” Was it a sigh that followed that gentle invocation? What would the youth give to hear that murmur,—to gaze like yonder stars on his slumbering love. Hush! are the morning-stars singing together—a lullaby to soothe the dreamer? A low dulcet strain floats in through the window; and soon, mingling with the breathings of the lute, the voice of youth. The harmony penetrates through the slumbering senses to the dreamer’s heart; and ere the golden curls are lifted from the pillow, she is conscious of all. The serenade begins anew. What does she hear?
“Stars of the summer night!
Far in yon azure deeps,
Hide, hide your golden light!
She sleeps!
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!
Dreams of the summer night!
Tell her her lover keeps
Watch! while in slumbers light
She sleeps
My lady sleeps!
Sleeps!”
VI.
The Home of Woodruffe the Gardener.
I.
“HOW pleased the boy looks, to be sure!” observed Woodruffe to his wife, as his son Allan caught up little Moss (as Maurice had chosen to call himself before he could speak plain) and made him jump from the top of the drawers upon the chair, and then from the chair to the ground. “He is making all that racket just because he is so pleased he does not know what to do with himself.”
“I suppose he will forgive Fleming now for carrying off Abby,” said the mother. “I say, Allan, what do you think now of Abby marrying away from us?”
“Why, I think it’s a very good thing. You know she never told me that we should go and live where she lived, and in such a pretty place, too, where I may have a garden of my own, and see what I can make of it—all fresh from the beginning, as father says.”
“You are to try your hand at the business, I know,” replied the mother, “but I never heard your father, nor any one else, say that the place was a pretty one. I did not think new railway stations had been pretty places at all.”