found not infrequent chances to steal into the
kitchen, where Delight was busy with household tasks, and enjoy the
rapture of a word or two with her.

Never were there such days of enchantment as these! He might, he often
said to himself, have remained in Wilton an entire summer and his
acquaintance with the lady of his heart never have reached the degree
of intimacy that it attained during Celestina's illness. To behold the
girl, fair as the new-blown rose, presiding at the wee breakfast table
was to forget all else. How dainty she looked in her trim cotton gown,
with its demure cuffs and collar of white, and how deftly her hands
moved among the simple fittings of the table! The worn agate
coffee-pot seemed transformed to classic outline, and the nectar it
contained to ambrosia. And what a famous little cook she was! Surely
such flaky biscuit could never have been made by other hands. Bob
suddenly became surprisingly interested in kitchens and all that they
contained. The glint of tin pans, the dull ebony of the stove,
iridescent suds foaming fresh and hot,--all these took on a strange and
homely beauty quite novel in its charm. He had never dreamed before
what an incomparable Eden a kitchen was!

To slip in and fill the wood-box; to creep into the pantry and watch
the beloved head as it bent over the baking table; to be permitted to
wipe the dishes while _She_ washed them made of the simple duties tasks
for gods and goddesses. He loved the pretty way her fringed lashes
lifted, the wave of color that swept her cheek when she was startled by
his step; and there was something ravishingly confidential in her
caution:

"Be careful, Bob, not to drop Aunt Tiny's china teacups."

It was all foolish and inconsequential--the sighs, the smiles, the
silences--but they made a paradise of the grim old universe. Many a
time he longed to press his lips to the white arm, to kiss the warm
curve of her neck where soft curls clustered. But he did none of these
things. By a gentle reserve the girl kept him at his distance, and
although there was only Jezebel to see, he did not transgress the
bounds Delight's sweet womanliness reared between them. Of course she
knew he loved her. She could not but know. Even Jezebel from her
round blue eyes proclaimed a complete understanding of the romance and
drawing herself into a fluffy ball in Willie's great chair feigned
sleep that she might not embarrass the lovers. The canary k