Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/59

 have to-day to myself undisturbed, will you not?"

"Ay."

Sitting in the arbor, looking westward, they watched the fading sky grow faint and colorless, and then deepen with the beauty of the night, purple, gold-flecked. From the dark magnolia overhead the mocking-bird trilled forth his matchless thread of song, linking the gems of heaven with the star flowers of earth. The perfume of the flowers was full of a subtile intoxication; and under the fitful light of the many-colored lanterns hanging from the branches like vast luminous fruits, pairs of men and women appeared and disappeared, flitting down the dim rose-bordered alleys. Strangers yesterday, strangers again perhaps to-morrow, but for that hour lovers,—by the power of the night, the odor of the flowers, by the note of the mocking-bird, and beneath all these by the magic melody of the Spring throbbing in the breasts of men, kindling in the eyes of girls, gushing from the song-bird's throat, swimming from the hearts of flowers, Spring and Love, Love and Spring!

The music of a hidden orchestra took up the great hymn, and the viols wailed forth the passion of that noblest of love-songs, "Adelaida," whose measures the deaf Beethoven never heard.