"Not so very successful," said Clayton. "I suppose you've heard my case has been appealed; so that my victory isn't so certain, after all."
"Oh," said Nina, "yes, it must be! I'm sure no person of common sense would decide any other way; and your own father is one of the judges, too."
"That will only make him the more careful not to be influenced in my favor," said Clayton.
The dancing now broke up, and the servants dispersed in an orderly manner, and the company returned to the veranda, which lay pleasantly checkered with the light of the moon falling through trailing vines. The air was full of those occasional pulsations of fragrance which rise in the evening from flowers.
"Oh, how delightful," said Nina, "this fragrance of the honeysuckles! I have a perfect passion for perfumes! They seem to me like spirits in the air."
"Yes," said Clayton, "Lord Bacon says, 'that the breath of flowers comes and goes in the air, like the warbling of music.'"
"Did Lord Bacon say that?" said Nina, in a tone of surprise.
"Yes; why not?" said Clayton.
"Oh, I thought he was one of those musty old philosophers who never thought of anything pretty!"
"Well," said Clayton, "then to-morrow let me read you his essay on gardens, and you'll find musty old philosophers often do think of pretty things."