He had no cause to blush now!
BOOK FOURTEENTH.
HAPPY DAYS.
CHAPTER I.
OWNERS OF THE BEAUTIFUL.
The world and all its inhabitants had rolled round to another fragrant spring. The buds were bursting in city parks and gardens, and birds twittered in the dusty air. Every happy heart said to itself, "This green, and these opening roses, this music of the birds, this shining day, this temperate breeze, are all mine, and made for me."
There were two young persons, one sweet morning in May, who experienced a delightful sense of that universal proprietorship of the Beautiful. They were a couple who appeared to be expressly made for each other; for the young man was tall and broad chested, the young woman short, and delicately formed; his eyes were black, hers blue; he was calm, resolute, deliberate in every movement, she quick and impulsive. There never was a clearer case of mutual fitness by virtue of entire dissimilarity.
Any one could see that they loved each other, and that, if they were not married, they were engaged--for her little hand was entwined most trustingly about his muscular arm, and she leaned toward him with that gentle inclination which seems to be a magnetism of the heart.