'I have to speak to you, Basil. Come where we can be private.'
They entered the room where they had sat before, and Aurelia, taking up the needlework left by Veranilda, showed it to her companion with admiration.
'She is wondrous at this art. In a contest with Minerva, would she not have fared better than Arachne? This mourning garment which I wear is of her making, and look at the delicate work; it was wrought four years ago, when I heard of my brother's death—wrought in a few days. She was then but thirteen. In all that it beseems a woman to know, she is no less skilled. Yonder lies her cithern; she learnt to touch it, I scarce know how, out of mere desire to soothe my melancholy, and I suspect—though she will not avow it—that the music she plays is often her own. In sickness she has tended me with skill as rare as her gentleness; her touch on the hot forehead is like that of a flower plucked before sunrise. Hearing me speak thus of her, what think you, O Basil, must be my trust in the man to whom I would give her for wife?'
'Can you doubt my love, O Aurelia?' cried the listener, clasping his hands before him.
'Your love? No. But your prudence, is that as little beyond doubt?'
'I have thought long and well,' said Basil.
Aurelia regarded him steadily.
'You spoke with her in the garden just now. Did she reply?'
'But few words. She asked me if I knew her origin, and blushed as she spoke.'
'It is her wish that I should tell you; and I will.'