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Page 90
DANDELIONS.
It seems a pity that, with all imagination at our service, we should
have to confine our excursions within so narrow a domain as this of
Hiero Glyphic's. One tires of the best society, uncondimented with an
occasional foreign relish, even of doubtful digestibility. Barring
this, it only remains to relieve somewhat the monotony of our food, by
variety in the modes of dishing it up.
Balder had been no whit disconcerted at the priest's abrupt
evanishment. The divine sphere of Gnulemah had touched him with its
sweet magnetism, and he was sensible of little beyond it. Their hands
greeted like life-long friends. Drawing hers within his arm, he still
kept hold of it, and her rounded shoulder softly pressed his, as they
loitered out between the impenetrable sphinxes. The conservatory,
however beautiful in itself and by association, was too small to hold
their hearts at this moment. They passed on, and through the columns
of the Moorish portico, into the fervent noon sunshine.
Grasshoppers chirped; fine buzzing flies darted swift circles and lit
again; birds giggled and gossiped, bobbing and swinging among swaying
boughs. Battalions of vast green trees stood grand in shadow-lakes of
cooler green, their myriad leaves twinkling light and dark. Tender
gleams of river topped the enamelled bank,--the further shore a
slumbering El Dorado. The trees in the distant orchard wore bridal
veils, and even Gnulemah's breath was not much sweeter than theirs!
Emerging arm in arm on the enchanted lawn the lovers turned southwards
up the winding avenue. The fragrance, the light and warmth, the bird
and insect voices, imperfectly expressed their own heart-happiness.
The living turf softly pressed up their feet. This was the fortunate
hour that comes not twice. Happy those to whom it comes at all! To
live was such full bliss, every new movement overflowed the cup. Joy
was it to look on earth and sky; but to behold each other was heaven!
More life in a moment such as this, than in twenty years of scheming
more successful than Manetho's.
They followed the same path Helen had walked the eve of her death; and
presently arrived at the old bench. Shadow and sunshine wrestled
playfully over it, while the green blood of the leaves overhead glowed
vividly against the blue. Around the bench the grass grew taller, as
on a grave; and crisp lichens, gray and brown, overspread its surface.
Man had neglected it so long that Nature, overcoming her diffidence
towards his handiwork, had at length claimed it for her own.
The glade was full of great golden dandelions, whose soft yellow
crowns were almost too heavy for the slender necks. The prince and
princess of the fairy-tale paused here, recognizing the spot as the
most beautiful on earth,--albeit only since their love's arrival. They
seated themselves not on the bench, but on the yet more primitive
grass beside it. They had not spoken as yet. Balder plucked some
dandelions, and proceeded to twist them into a chain; and Gnulemah,
after watching him for a while followed his example.
"You and I have sat on the grass and woven such chains before,"
asserted she at length. "When was it?"
"I haven't done such a thing since I was a child not much taller than
a dandelion," returned Balder. He was not ethereal enough to follow
Gnulemah in her apparently fanciful flight, else might he have lighted
on a discovery to which all the good sense and logic in the world
would not have brought him.
"Yes; we have made these chains before!" reiterated Gnulemah, looking
at her companion in a preoccupied manner. "They were to have chained
us together forever."
"We should have made them of stronger stuff then. But which of us
broke the chain?"
"They took us away from each other, and it was never finished. Do you
remember nothing?"
"The present is enough for me," said her lover; and he finished his
necklace with a handsome clasp of blossoms, and threw it over her
neck. She gave a low sigh of satisfaction.
"I have been waiting for it ever since that time! And here is mine for
you."
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