"Well, then, I think you should speak of it openly to him,—if only for Georgie's sake."
"For her sake?" He colors again, and bites his lips. "If you really think I owe it to her, of course I shall do it, however distasteful the task may be; though I cannot see how it will benefit her."
"He is your uncle; you will wish your own family to receive her?"
"I dare say you are right," says Branscombe, with a shrug. "People always are when they suggest to you an unpleasant course."
"What is unpleasant now? How can there be anything to distress any one on such a heavenly day as this?" cries the soft petulant voice he loves so well, calling to them across a flower-bed near.
Springing over it, she comes up to the window, and, leaning her elbows on the sill close to him, laughs gayly up into his face.
"There shall be nothing to distress you, at all events, my 'amber witch,'" returns he, gayly, too. "Come, show me once more these gardens you love so well."
A promise with Dorian is not made of pie-crust: though sorely against his will, he goes up to Hythe after dinner to acquaint his uncle formally of his approaching marriage. The evening is calm and full of rest and quiet, a fit ending to the perfect day that has gone before:
"The long day wanes, the broad fields fade; the night—
The sweet June night—is like a curtain drawn.
The dark lanes know no faintest sound, and white
The pallid hawthorn lights the smooth-bleached lawn;
The scented earth drinks from the silent skies
Soft dews, more sweet than softest harmonies."