Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/71

1858.]. "Fire seeks fire, and clay, clay. Isis send me Antony, and every philosopher in Alexandria may go drown in the Nile! Shall I blind my eyes with scrolls of papyrus when there is a goodly Roman to be looked upon?"

From the deep blue petals of a double English violet came a delicate face, pale, serene, sad, but exceeding tender. "Love liveth when the lover dies," said Lady Rachel Russell. "I have well loved my lord in the prison; shall I cease to affect him when he is become one of the court above?"

"You are cautious of speech, Mesdames," carelessly spoke Marguerite. "Women are the fools of men; you all know it. Every one of you has carried cap and bell."

They all turned toward the hawk's-bill tulip; it was not there.

"Gone to Kenilworth," demurely sneered Mary of Scotland.

A pond-lily, floating in a tiny tank, opened its clasped petals; and with one bare pearly foot upon the green island of leaves, and the other touching the edge of the marble basin, clothed with a rippling, lustrous, golden garment of hair, that rolled downward in glittering masses to her slight ankles, and half hid the wide, innocent, blue eyes and infantile, smiling lips, Eve said, "I was made for Adam," and slipped silently again into the closing flower.

"But we have changed all that!" answered Marguerite, tossing her jewel-clasped curls.

"They whom the saints call upon to do battle for king and country have their nature after the manner of their deeds," came a clear voice from the fleur-de-lis, that clothed itself in armor, and flashed from under a helmet the keen, dark eyes and firm, beardless lips of a woman.

"There have been cloistered nuns," timidly breathed La Vallière.

"There is a monk's-hood in that parterre without," said Marguerite.

The white clematis shivered. It was a veiled shape in long robes, that hid face and figure, who clung to the wall and whispered, "Paraclete!"

"There are tales of saints in my breviary," soliloquized Mary of Scotland; and in the streaming moonlight, as she spoke, a faint outline gathered, lips and eyes of solemn peace, a crown of blood-red roses pressing thorns into the wan temples that dripped sanguine streams, and in the halo above the wreath a legend, partially obscured, that ran, "Utque talis Rosa nulli alteri plantæ adhæreret"

"But the girl there is no saint; I think, rather, she is of mine own land," said a purple passion-flower, that hid itself under a black mantilla, and glowed with dark beauty. The Spanish face bent over me with ardent eyes and lips of sympathetic passion, and murmured, "Do not fear! Pedro was faithful unto and after death; there are some men"

Pan growled! I rubbed my eyes! Where was I? Mrs. Reading stood by me in very extempore costume, holding a night-lamp:—

"Goodness me, Miss Clara!" said she, "I never was more scared. I happened to wake up, and I thought I see your west window open across the corner; so I roused up to go and see if you was sick; and you wasn't in bed, nor your frock anywhere. I was frighted to pieces; but when I come down and found the greenhouse door open, I went in just for a chance, and, lo and behold! here you are, sound asleep in the chair, and Pan a-lying close onto that beautiful black lace frock! Do get up, Miss Clara! you'll be sick to-morrow, sure as the world!"

I looked round me. All the flowers were cool and still; the calla breathless and quiet; the pond-lily shut; the roses full of dew and perfume; the clematis languid and luxuriant.

"Delia," said I, "what do you think about matrimony?"

Mrs. Reading stared at me with her honest green eyes. I laughed.

"Well," said she, "marriage is a lottery, Miss Clara. Reading was a pretty