With a lingering, tender embrace, twilight untwined her nebulous arms from the sable-lustre mantle of night and parted with a promise.
The tryst place had been the dim, infinite dome of the world. Plenipotent, majestic night settled on the throne of the supernal cosmos, diademed with a million twinkling jewels to dazzle his mundane subjects. His ancient serfs, patrolling the heavens at his behest, all a-glitter, trembled in his presence. And between the limits of these fire-touched planets, the milky-highroad developed like a mystic wand leading across a vast ethereal universe, and trailing adown into immeasurable cyclopic spaces, fading away between the gigantic vapor-tombs and ghost biers of a thousand dead centuries.
And all the soul-stirring agencies of rapturous nature pulsed and glowed down upon the night-world of mankind. A neutral moon whose fixed face, young yet, unsmiled and uncreased with the joys and woes upheld by the supplicant ages, seemed now to soften with mellow sympathy upon a girl-heart below. Could even a stoic moon look upon this girl unmoved? Belle-Ann leaned listlessly against the bronze rail that girded the fountain, gazing with expectant eyes, along the moonlit path leading to the seminary.
The Chapel bells chimed out their angelus across the fantasmal gloaming, tinkling through the girl's mood in utter harmony with the music of her soul, and the supernal smiles that lingered about her cupid lips. Beneath the enchanting rays of the moon, Belle-Ann's wraith-like, relaxed form looked even taller. Arrayed in a vision of delicate blue silk and lace, clinging to the pronounced curves of her subtle outlines, she presented an unforgettable picture; a rare hellenism of feminine beauty. A type to ravish the senses. The shimmering blackness of the girlish curls that crowded around her small features, contrasted adorably with her eburnean skin, natural as the purity of rose petals, soft and fine-textured, from which the mountain tan had long since vanished.
A bouquet of great roses was pinned at her bosom, and the musk of calcanthus was in her curls. Her lips parted and she hummed a soft ditty. The sweet dulcet timbre of her voice was a mellowed sound wafted straight from the realms of Dixie. Her whole palpable self irradiated and pulsed with the subtle witchery and glamour of the South.
As she stood in the half-shadow of the fountain gazing intently along the hedge-hemmed path, a sudden gladness stirred her as she discerned what her eyes had sought. Two vague forms descended from the porch, coupled perilously near together. Then, as they halted beneath the dappled shadows of the rose-tree, Belle-Ann fancied she saw a white sleeve against a sable shoulder. It may have been the trick of her imagination, but it seemed that the man stooped his head and lingered over the white-clad figure.
She knew it was Colonel Tennytown and Miss Worth who tarried there. Belle-Ann had known all evening that he would seek her out. She had not laid eyes on him since the Sunday preceding that memorable dawn when Miss Worth had revealed his relationship. But now with a heart full to the brim with gratitude she awaited his coming, and to acknowledge her grandfather.
Presently, the Colonel's tall figure emerged from the shadows and came toward her. With his broad hat in his hand he halted before her and smilingly bowed in courtly grace. As Belle-Ann looked straight into his eyes, her face was now all aflush with pleasure and the baffling dimples were at play.