She looked with sorrowful eyes over the water, and after some minutes she murmured: "only return safe with him, and I may be fond to you, Arthur."
We dallied there a goodly time after this, till some of the star-glints were lit all amid the lilies of the pool; the little bird became sullener or sleepy, and barely lisped anon; I saw a tear steal down the cheek of our friend, as she commenced to hum, and then to sing wistfully, and to twang out on the harp one of those artificial little hymns of her brother, whose austere, sad music had long been dear to our hearts: it was his Serenade, already at that time set to music by the many-minded Ambrose Rivers of "New Church" notoriety:
"In its dash
Showers down the rill,
Raving of the hill
(Graves are on the hill),
May its streams
Mingle with thy dreams.
Rove with Robin, love:
Mumble in thy brain
Murmurs of the main.
For the cock
Drawleth as a-yawn,
Dreaming of the dawn
(Hoarily a-dawn),
And a-mount
Showereth the fount.
Almond-drugged the garth,
Showery besprayed,
Hoarily arrayed.
And of God
Worthy is the sight,
Worlds are in the night
(Walkers of the night),
And He calls
Westwardly His thralls;
Gorgeous large they glide,
Wardedly like sheep,
Walkers in a sleep.
And a brawl
Craveth in this breast,
Craving thee and rest
(God in thee and rest),
And a roar
Droneth to the shore.
Dashing raves the rill,
'Lazily they lie,
God it is to die.'"
Her rendering of it was berippled all the while by the whispering tongue of the wren, and when she finished I said to her: "you see, the water-lilies have heard at least you once more, Emily, and there is hope, for Mercy is only in Cuckoo-town in so far as Cuckoo-town is in heaven. But we should go back to the cottage now, for the stars are looking out in crowds, and it is beginning to grow cold."
She came with me, and we paced back by the margin of the pool, through the wood, and up a dell, to the cottage. All laughter had gone now from her lips, her steps were laggard, for she was easily wearied and emptied now; and I held her poor hand all the way.
As we entered upon the bridge, there stood Langler at a door of the cottage, a letter in his hand, which, when we had gone into the dining-room, he handed to me openly before Miss Emily. It was the letter from Upper Styria come at last, signed by a certain Oberpolizeirath Tiarks, whose face I was destined one day to see. I read it with a greed which I could not hide. But it consisted mostly of a gorgeous heading, the writing being in two lines only, and these cold enough but for their salute of "high-born sir!" It merely acknowledged the receipt of our "honoured but somewhat insubstantial [ungegründet!] communication"; and there it ended.
It was for this that we had waited! The paper was actually perfumed.