And Time, oh, too swiftly did fly;
The cup is dashed down before my lips reach
It, and bliss is cut off with ‘If I——’
And oh! what a vista of happiness opes
At the touch of the Sesame ‘if;’
What a sun-colored life, what a Canaan of hopes
Do I glimpse through the unclosing rift.”
There was no signature, but a holly leaf was pinned at the bottom of the verses. The emblem of holly I knew to be “Forgotten;” but if I had picked the verses up in Bessarabia I would have known Miss Finnock wrote them. I folded them up carefully and put the cigar case in my pocket, and finished my tea in silence, Mrs. Marshman having risen from the table while I was reading. I was really annoyed at the turn things had taken. If Miss Finnock had been an experienced flirt I should have regarded the affair as capital fun, but I felt sure Miss F. was in earnest; for, though she was old enough, she had never had much experience, and I had not attained that very desirable point of social education when I could knowingly trifle with a young lady’s feelings. I resolved once not to see her again, but remembered that I had an engagement to visit the encampment with her next morning.
“Well,” I said, resignedly, as I lit my cigar on the lawn, “I will certainly not commit myself farther. No word or hint of love will I give to-morrow.”
