“And then,” continued Wentworth, “the gold embroidery on the cymar melted into gold lustre, and passed into Muriel’s eyes. See how golden her eyes are this morning. Their clear grey looks through a transparent sheen of gold.”
“They are golden with love, then,” said Muriel, laughingly, “for the cymar is up-stairs, with all its embroidery intact. It is Harrington who is the fairy prince, and I am the Sleeping Beauty whom he waked from her sleep of twenty years, and now I am to follow him through all the world. But come, John, I promised you an agreeable surprise this morning, you know.”
“Well, and have you not given it to me?” said Harrington, smiling at her. “This beautiful room, all bedecked with roses, and then yourself in your miraculous beauty—why, I am in receipt of two agreeable surprises!”
“Ah, John,” she replied, with enchanting gaiety, “but I have a third more wonderful than those.”
“What is it?” asked Harrington, amusedly.
“I’ll tell you,” she answered. “Friends, attention! My dear mother, do you remember the little conversation we had at dinner the day before yesterday?”
“Perfectly,” replied Mrs. Eastman, coloring slightly, and looking at her charming daughter with some wonder.
“Well, my dear mother,” returned Muriel, with bewitching playfulness, “I reflected seriously all day yesterday on what you said, and I decided to oblige you. John, come here to me.”
Harrington, curious to know what was meant by this preface, approached, and stood before her with a sweetly smiling countenance. Slowly her beautiful white arms stole around him, clasped him lightly, and drew him to her. It seemed in that moment as if, in the noble features upturned to his, all the versatile expressions of which they were capable darted magically together in a bewildering and harmonious play, like the soft floating and intermingling of evanescent, tender rainbow hues on a clear and delicate air. But slowly through their indecisive enchantment broke a dazzling smile, a fairy tremor lifted her fine nostril, the color bloomed deeplier on her cheeks and lips, and her eyes glowed.
“John!” said she, in a clear, melodious voice, “this is our marriage morn.”