"Yes; it was of them I thought," he says, turning his head away,—"of the—lovers. I wonder if their evening was as lovely as ours?"
Mona makes no reply.
"Have you ever read Shelley?" asks he, presently, puzzled by the extreme serenity of her manner.
She shakes her head.
"Some of his ideas are lovely. You would like his poetry, I think."
"What does he say about the moon?" asks Mona, still with her knees in her embrace, and without lifting her eyes from the quiet waters down below.
"About the moon? Oh, many things. I was not thinking of the moon," with faint impatience; "yet, as you ask me, I can remember one thing he says about it."
"Then tell it to me," says Mona.
So at her bidding he repeats the lines slowly, and in his best manner, which is very good:—
"The cold chaste moon, the queen of heaven's bright isles,
Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles!
That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame,
Which ever is transformed, yet still the same,
And warms, but not illumines."