Nearer and nearer came the singer, pouring out his lay as if his heart was in it. Brighter and brighter glowed the human rose, as the featherless nightingale told his tale in music, unconsciously approaching the happy sequel with each step.
Out from the gloom he came, at last; saw her waiting for him in the light; seemed to read the glad truth in her face, and stretched both hands to her without a word. She took them; and what followed who shall say? For the moon, best friend of lovers, discreetly slipped behind a cloud, and the pines whispered their congratulations as they wrapped the twain in deepest shadow.
When, half an hour later, they joined the other pair (who, strange to say, had quite forgotten their charge), Uncle Ben exclaimed, as he welcomed the new-comer with unusual cordiality: "Why, Rose! You look quite glorified in this light and as well as ever. We must try this cure again."
"No need, sir. I have done with the heartache, and here is my physician," answered Rose, with a look at her lover which told the story better than the best chosen words.
"And here is mine," echoed Milly, leaning on Uncle Ben's arm as if it belonged to her; as it did, for the moonlight had been too much for the old bachelor, and, in spite of his fifty years, he had wooed and won Milly as ardently as any boy. So the lonely future she had accepted so cheerfully suddenly bloomed with happy hopes; and the older couple looked as blissfully content as the young pair, who greeted with the blithest laughter that ever woke the echoes of the wood, this fit ending to the romance of a summer day.
MY ROCOCO WATCH.
All three of us were inspired with an intense desire to possess one of these quaint watches, the moment we saw one hanging at the side of a certain lovely woman at a party where it created a great sensation.
Imitations we would not have, and the genuine article could not be found even in Geneva, the paradise of time-pieces. My sisters soon ceased to pine for the impossible, and contented themselves with other antique gauds. Fan rejoiced in a very ugly Cinque-Cento ring like a tiny coffin, and Mary was the proud possessor of a Roman necklace composed of gods and goddesses.
I, however, remained true to my first love and refused to be satisfied with any thing but a veritable rococo watch, for that, I maintained, united the useful and the beautiful. Resisting the temptations of Rome, Paris, and Geneva, I skilfully lured my unsuspecting party into all sorts of out-of-the-way places under pretence of studying up the old French cathedrals.