To Arcady, to Arcady." All around them the flowers bloomed in lavish profusion; the tender-eyed pansies, the golden-hearted lilies, the fragrant roses, shaking out perfume on the warm summer air, while the bees and the butterflies hurried from flower to flower, and overhead the blue sky of June smiled on the happy lovers—so happy, dreaming not of the darkened future. [39]Where some luxuriant shrubbery formed a convenient screen, Love drew Dainty aside, crying, ardently: [39] "I am dying to kiss you, my own little darling! May I?" Without waiting for consent, he clasped her in his arms, and kissed her lips again and again, with the ardor of the honey-bee rifling the flowers of their sweets, till she struggled bashfully from him, crying: "But the roses!" "Come, then, we will get them;" and they sauntered on along the graveled path in a sort of silent ecstacy, until suddenly Dainty recoiled with a horrified cry: "Oh, see that hideous viper!" Love looked down and saw a large viper crawling across their path, its hideous head upraised in defiance, hissing venomously at their advance. "See how angry it is! What a wicked glare in its eyes! See how its red forked tongue darts at us in rage! Oh, is it not an evil omen to our love?" half sobbed Dainty, drawing back and regarding the serpent with fearful interest mixed with unwilling fascination. "Stand aside, darling, and I will make short work of the evil omen!" Love answered, gayly, as with two sharp blows of the racquet he carried in his hand he destroyed the ominous intruder on their peace, and kicked it aside, saying, soothingly: "Take that as an omen, darling, that I will always thrust aside whatever interferes between us and happiness." "Oh, you are so strong, so brave! I am not afraid of anything while you are with me!" Dainty cried, clinging to the arm of her bold, handsome lover, who smiled on her so lovingly as he gathered the beautiful roses to[40] replace those he had sent her that morning, and that were now withering at her waist. [40] He took some of the fading flowers, kissed them, and placed them very carefully in his
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