To walk together pearly paths
Of mermaids, down the coral strand.”
You ought to have said “path,” Saph; you’ve spoiled your rhyme; and “mermaids” and a “coral strand,” out in this little lake, are very much strained, but so are the verses. I was, as I have stated, in a pleasant frame of mind, and thus jested to myself with the verses as I read them. The next verse, however, put the case a little more strongly:
“I fain would seek a watery grave,
To dwell with thee in grottoes bright,
Or roam through halls where the sea-weeds wave,
And love would make the darkness light.”
To think of marrying her anywhere! much less down in a grotto, with sea-weeds and bad colds, and coral, etc. No, I could not “fain,” as she did; but I glanced at my watch as I rose from the table, and found that it wanted a quarter of eight. Fifteen minutes with a Partaga, and I tapped at the door of her parlor. Miss Finnock after Carlotta! ‘Twas like a dessert of nutgalls after Hymettean honey; but I felt that the necessary exercise of my ingenuity would be rather pleasant than otherwise, and looked forward to our interview, with anticipated pride in my skilful retrogression.
When I entered I found Miss Finnock reclining in an easy chair, and looking as little like her Lesbian nomenclatress as scant strings of hair, an unmade, stiff figure, and pale blue eyes, in a sallow face, could make her. She smiled a faint little welcome, and pointed me to a seat in front of her.