"Emily, I am feeling glad to-night; my heart sings loud for joy. You cannot think how beautiful you have grown in my eyes; even though you filled my heart long days ago, that heart-room does expand with growth, and your queenly beauty still fills it to completeness. Let your hair fall over your shoulders; look out over the future days with your speaking eyes as if you were a picture, my Emily." And as he said this my shell-comb was in his hand and my long and heavy hair lay about me like a mantle. He liked to see it so, and I sat as if receiving a blessed benediction.
"Can you see nothing before you?" he asked.
"Mists, like drapery curtains, shade the days," I said: "What is it you would have me find?"
"Find the month of June's dear roses,
Find a trellis and a vine;
Ask your heart, my queenly darling,
If the sun will on us shine,
And my heart, love's waiting trellis,
Then receive its clinging vine.
Have I spoken well and truly?
Does your soul like mine decide?
And, with June's dear wealth of roses,
Shall I claim you for a bride?
Do the old hills answer, darling?
Unto me they seem to say:
'Two young hearts in truth have waited;
Emily may name the day.'"
As the words of his impromptu verse died away, the moon, looking through the rifted clouds, beamed an affirmation, and I said:
"Let June be the month, Louis; the day shall name itself."
Clara called: "It is nine o'clock, my dear ones;" and we said "good night."