But the third time he brought her a locket. Its face was a mass of pearls, with one large and costly diamond sparkling in the center.
"You can wear this, dearest," he said pleadingly.
"Yes, I can wear that," she said in the soft, melting voice, which used to echo in his ears long after he had left her and was up in town. "I can wear that," and she tied it by her ribbon round her neck and hid it away in her bosom. "No one can see that, and I can take it out——"
"Off?" he said.
"No, sir," she corrected him, blushing; "I shall not take it off again, but I shall take it out whenever I am likely to forget you."
"Don't say that, even in fun, Madge," he said in a low voice, and with a sudden look of pain. "I can't bear to think of you forgetting me. Why, if I were dead, and you were walking near my grave——" he stopped; and she murmured the well-known song:
"Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red."
"That's it!" he said, approvingly and admiringly. "What a memory you have got, Madge. Is it Shakespeare?"
"No; Tennyson," and she smiled. "What an ignorant boy it is!"