Page:Bayard Taylor - Joseph and His Friend.djvu/193

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" a plan," said Julia, a week or two later. "Can you guess it? No, I think not; yet you might! O, how lovely the light falls on your hair: it is perfect satin!"

She had one hand on his shoulder, and ran the fingers of the other lightly through his brown locks. Her face, sparkling all over with a witching fondness, was lifted towards his. It was the climax of an amiable mood which had lasted three days.

What young man can resist a playful, appealing face, a soft, caressing touch? Joseph smiled as he asked,—

"Is it that I shall wear my hair upon my shoulders, or that we shall sow plaster on the clover-field, as old Bishop advised you the other day?"

"Now you are making fun of my interest in farming; but wait another year! I am trying earnestly to understand it, but only so that ornament—beauty—what was the word in those lines you read last night? may grow out of use. That's it—Beauty out of Use! I know I've bored you a little sometimes—just a little, now, confess it!—with all my questions; but this is something different. Can't you think of anything that would make our home, O so much more beautiful?"

"A grove of palm-trees at the top of the garden? Or a lake in front, with marble steps leading down to the water?"

"You perverse Joseph! No: something possible,