With my arm around Ellen's slender waist, we walked down the shady alleys of the garden in search of Langley and Mary, but for a while were unsuccessful; at last I caught a sight of Mary's white dress in a distant arbor. We approached the bower unperceived by its occupants, and were upon the point of entering, but we luckily discovered in time that we should be altogether de trop. Langley was on his knees before the coquettish Mary, making love in his most grandiloquent style.
"Most adorable creature," quoth my romantic shipmate, thumping his right side, "you lacerate my heart by your obdurate cruelty!"
"Get up off your knees, you foolish boy," answered the mischievous girl; "you will certainly stain the knees of your white trowsers."
"Oh! divine goddess! hear me!" persisted my chum, magnanimously disregarding the welfare of his unwhisperables in the present crisis.
"You idolatrous sailor remember the first commandment."
"The devil fly away with the first commandment!" cried poor Langley, sorely vexed. "Most lovely of human beings," he continued with a deep groan, which he intended to be a pathetic sigh, "my heart is on fire."
"May be you've got the fever, William," suggested Mary; "are you in much pain?"
"Yes, great pain," said Bill, with another heart-rending groan.
"Well, then, rise, I insist—Lord! if anybody should catch us in this predicament!"
"Hadn't we better go away?" whispered Ellen, blushing for her sister's sake.