“Are they not beautiful?” asked Leonie, as she concluded.
“Very beautiful,” responded Mr. Weems, with a faint impression that it might perhaps pay him to abandon the old masters, and to grasp the resounding lyre, with a resolution to thrum it during the remainder of his life.
“‘Sweetheart’ is a name I always liked,” said Leonie. “You called me your ‘rosebud,’ in your last letter; but somehow it did not please me so much as ‘sweetheart;’ it was not so natural.”
“Twenty-five years is old for a rosebud,” said Mr. Weems, absently.
“Yes,” replied Leonie; “and does it not seem odd, Julius, that we who have been apart so long should now be united forever, and that we should go down the current of time together until the end?”
While she was speaking, the elegant clock, from beneath its crystal covering, chimed out the hour of four, and the artist, consulting his watch, discovered that the correct time was precisely ten minutes past eleven. He arose from his seat, and fondly embracing Leonie, he kissed her, and bade her good night. She went to the window, and as, by the light of the street lamp, she saw him descending the steps in front of the house, she waved her hand toward him. Then turning, she proceeded to the hall, and up the stairs to bed, murmuring to herself,—
“Burn them! That would be insane!”
CHAPTER II.
SAINT CADMUS’S.—CHURCH MATTERS OF IMPORTANCE.—FATHER KRUM AND FATHER TUNICLE.—A RIOTOUS SERVICE.
