The Sabbath dawned calm and peaceful and beautiful, and filled with Sabbatic stillness. Such a Sabbath as would have waked the holy muse of Donne or Herbert, of Keble or Heber, to celebrate its restful sanctity in sacred song. But its sweetest hymn was the gracious face of Muriel, as she sat at the organ in the library, singing in a low voice a psalm that breathed from heaven into the soul of David three thousand years ago.
The spirit of the music lived in her countenance as she sang, and lingered there when the tender and regal chant had failed. Too happy for even music to express, she rose from the instrument, and rapt in heavenly reverie, wandered to and fro about the room.
But a little while, however, for presently the bounding foot of Harrington was heard upon the stairs, and he came in.
“Ah, truant!” she playfully exclaimed, gliding to his arms, and gazing up into his smiling face, “where have you been. I woke this morning to find myself a widow. Now give me the morning kiss of which I was defrauded.”
He folded her in his arms, and fondly kissed her again and again.
“I have been to my house,” he said, “and do you know why? To see after my dog. Positively, I had almost forgotten the existence of that delectable animal, and my conscience smote me this morning lest he should have been neglected, which he has not been, for the boys have been his guardians. So I stole from your side like a thief of the night. You were sleeping so sweetly, and looked so beautiful in your sleep, that I did not dare to disturb you. Strange feeling I had in leaving you—it was almost like going never to return.”
“And I, too,” she replied, melting from her blushing smile into musing. “I woke from a singular dream of you. I dreamed that I was going about alone in the house and in the streets and among all sorts of people, and you were at an immeasurable distance above me, looking at me constantly from behind the air, as it were. The strangest thing was that I could not see you, though at the same time I knew you were there just as if I saw you. But we were separated. And yet I was not sad—indeed, the dream was happy. Presently I unclosed my eyes, and for a moment,” she said, laughing, “I really felt as if I were a widow, which I have no ambition to be, I assure you.”
Harrington laughed gaily, and pressed his lips to her forehead.
“Dreams are strange,” he said, lightly. “But how exquisite you are this morning! Every time I see you you look new. Stand back a pace, and let me admire you!”
She danced back a couple of yards, and stood playfully regarding him, with her beautiful and noble head bent a little on one side, while his eyes dwelt on her delicately tinted features, and wandered over the stately elegance of her form. She was robed that morning in pale rose-colored silk, with lace corsage and lace open sleeves. About her hung that indefinable and delicious patrician odor which we sometimes perceive around the persons of fair women, and which touches the imagination like the aroma of a poetic nobility of soul. A thrill fled through the veins of Harrington as he gazed on her, and then his eyes grew sad, and the smile on his face died slowly away.