Willie received the report of their successful mission in the city with almost ecstatic joy. "Can it be true?" he thought. There would be difficulties; any amount of pride must be overcome—shrinking sensitiveness subdued—but he would try! To have aspirations—anticipations of success—what more could he desire?
In three days Mrs. Gaylord would go with Willie to his new home and Phebe was to accompany them.
CHAPTER XI.
"ROSEDALE."
Come with me, gentle reader, to the sunny south, to the land of orange groves, where the air is sweetest and the sky is bluest; where nature's lyre does not of necessity get unstrung or lose her summer melodies as winter breaks in with harsh, discordant notes to jar the ear and chill the rich, warm blood. Come to the land of flowers, of poetry, of dreams. Hard seems the fate which thrusts a "serpent into every paradise," in whose trail death follows, withering up its freshness and throwing a net-work of decay over its richest beauties. Yet such is the intruder blighting many homes in the cold regions of the bustling north, as well as in the clime where the sweet singers of the faded woods delight to pour out their winter's songs. Alas! that it should be so.
"Why, my Lily-Bell, how faded you look this morning! Worse than the rose you wore in your hair last night. Now let me wager something. What shall it be? Ah! my yesterday's letter against your's of yesterday, also, that I can divine the cause. Shall it be? Ah! that smile! It was like the morning zephyrs sporting with the withered petals of my 'Lily-Bell.' Let me kiss back its beauty, or breath some of my exuberance into it, which seems so worthless in its prodigality," and the lively little lady bent over the invalid's chair and kissed over and over again the brow of her companion.
"There! there! Look quickly! Two little rose leaves of unquestionably pinkish hue are fluttering in close proximity to those lovely dimples. But they have flitted away again. What a pity that beauty is so fleeting."