“Dey was at de window when I gallupped up, an’ dey both come out to de porch, an’ de little one laugh like anything when de purty one told what you sed in de note, and she pinched her on de arm, and say, ‘he’s gwine to gib you heself nex’,’ and den dey both laugh. De purty one say den, ‘I wish he would; I’d keep him.’ An’ while she gone to write de note de little one asts me sight er questions ‘bout you, an’ I tell her ‘dun no ‘m’ to everything, ‘cause I d’ want her to marry you, Marse John. Den de tother one come back, an’ gin me dat little cranksided invellop, an’ tole me to fetch it to you. Des as I git in de saddle, I hear one of ’em say, ‘Boot’ful, ain’t it; and so thortless of my prezure in him.’ But I never stay der, I tell you, Marse John. I lef’, glad ‘nough to fetch Phregon back ‘gin.”
“Well, take him back to the stable, and rub him off,” I said, turning to go upstairs.
The case now stands thus, I said to myself, as I walked thoughtfully up the steps: She evidently loves me. She knows now that I love her; all that is needed is a mutual confession. When shall it take place? The very first opportunity.
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
I had secured the key from the librarian, and we did not, therefore, fear interruption, as the library of the Society was only open to the public on Saturdays.
As we walked from alcove to alcove selecting books, reading an extract from one, examining the engravings in another, and I realized that we were all alone in the great silent hall, I felt the resistless current of my love more strongly than ever, and determined to reveal it if I could, before we left the library. But the very thought of sitting by her side and telling her to her face that I loved her made a hot flutter rise in my heart that imparted its tremor to my limbs, and I began to think it were best to put off the disclosure a few days yet.
At length we took our seat on one of the sofas, and bent together over a beautifully illustrated copy of that passionate Persian poem—the Gitagovinda.
We opened to a picture of Rhada half concealed in the papyri, gazing on the inconstant Heri as he sports with the laughing shepherdesses. The sad, wounded look spread over the chiselled features told of the jealousy within her heart, and shaded the radiance of Heaven with the blight of Earth’s sorrow.
“Isn’t that face exquisite?” she said, after gazing for some time at it without speaking; “and the hand half raised, holding the broken stem of lotus, how perfect in outline. The whole picture is the loveliest thing I ever saw.”