“Ah! but I know you did all this for me; I feel it and I must say it, Alick, dear Alick,” she murmured, with tears of love and joy in her eyes.
All the time they were in the library they heard the songs of birds—a sound so unusual in that wintry season, that Drusilla had looked up once or twice with a startled expression; but as Alexander had only smiled at her surprise without attempting to gratify her unspoken curiosity, she forbore to ask him questions, and waited until he should explain the mystery.
“Come now,” he said, “I have something else to show you.”
And he led her down to the lower end of the room, to a green curtain that hung from ceiling to floor, and from side to side, and corresponded, except in color, with that one which divided the dining-room from the drawing-room.
He drew aside this curtain and revealed a scene of enchantment.
It was a room of crystal glass, in gilded sashes, and it was filled with the rarest and most beautiful exotic plants, most of them in full bloom. Among these plants hung large gilded cages, in which were birds of the most brilliant plumage and the sweetest notes, whose songs filled all the sunny and perfumed air with melody.
Birds and flowers of all the objects in nature had always been Drusilla’s especial delight. Her love of them might have been called a passion. And it had never been gratified until now. And here she had them of the most beautiful sorts, gathered in one splendid crystal room like a fairy palace. And as she looked a smile of rapture lighted up her lovely face, and then she turned towards the giver of all these and tried to utter her feelings; but instead of speaking, she burst into tears, threw herself in his arms, and sobbed on his bosom.
He had overwhelmed her with his gifts, as he had done once before.
How smilingly he caressed and soothed her, until she lifted up her head, dashed away her tears, and said, laughing:
“‘I am a fool to weep at what I am glad of,’ as Juliet, or Lady Macbeth, or Regan, or Goneril, or some one of Shakespeare’s women says.”