I
IT was a lovely morning in the early summer that Milly Clark’s lover brought her the engagement ring with which she was also to be wedded some sweet day. It was a plain hoop of gold, with the word Mizpah graven upon its inner side, not because there was any thought of parting between them then, but simply in accordance with a somewhat sentimental fashion of the day. Milly had been given her choice between the ring and a little padlocked bracelet of which Norton was to keep the key, after it had been safely fastened on her white wrist, and this, indeed, appealed to all the instincts of barbaric womanhood, in its suggestion of a lover’s mastery; but the ring was the holier symbol, and the pledge of love eternal.
The bees were buzzing around the syringa bushes in the corner of the old-fashioned garden, where the lovers stood looking out upon the road through the white fence which was built upon a stone wall, and covered with climbing roses. The road, shining in the sunlight, sloped down to a bridge half hidden by chestnut trees, and beyond was a glimpse of hills against the blue sky of June. The air, the countryside, the hum of unseen insects, contained that suggestion of joy unspeakable that comes only at this heavenly time of the year, but there were only the two by the garden wall to feel it in its perfection this morning. As far as the eye could see there was no other human being anywhere. At eleven o’clock in a New England village, after the marketing is seen to and mail time over, all self-respecting persons are at home behind the bowed green blinds of the white houses by the roadside, or at work farther off in the fields. For Milly and Norton to be out in the garden now was to be quite alone, and when he put his arm around her and drew her down beside him on the stone wall among the roses, she only smiled confidingly up into his face, and flushed sweetly as he kissed her.
“I can’t seem to get used to it,” she said.
“Get used to what, dear?”
“Your—loving me.”
“I don’t want you to get used to it!” he cried fervently. “I’m sure I never shall. Why, when we’re quite old people it will be just the same as it is now. Love can never grow old—not ours, anyway. Can it, Milly!”
She gave him a smile for answer and he gazed down at her admiringly, taking note anew of the deep blue of her eyes, the little veins on her forehead, where the soft brown hair was drawn smoothly back from it, and the pure curve of her throat and chin—a face of the highest New England type, fine and beautiful. He himself was the product of a different civilization, and cast in a rougher mold. It was the very difference that had drawn them close together, his rude strength giving sweetest promise of protection to her delicate fineness. She sat silently looking at him, her soul steeped in a delicious dream.
“Yes, we will be like this always,” she said at last with almost religious solemnity.