s no
touch of romance about any of you. Look at the moon there at the back
of the steeple. I don't mean to go in all night." Then she walked off
by one of the paths, and her lover went after her.

"Don't you like the moon?" she said, as she took his arm, to which
she was now so accustomed that she hardly thought of it as she took
it.

"Like the moon?--well; I fancy I like the sun better. I don't quite
believe in moonlight. I think it does best to talk about when one
wants to be sentimental."

"Ah; that is just what I fear. That is what I say to Bell when I tell
her that her romance will fade as the roses do. And then I shall have
to learn that prose is more serviceable than poetry, and that the
mind is better than the heart, and--and that money is better than
love. It's all coming, I know; and yet I do like the moonlight."

"And the poetry,--and the love?"

"Yes. The poetry much, and the love more. To be loved by you is
sweeter even than any of my dreams,--is better than all the poetry I
have read."

"Dearest Lily," and his unchecked arm stole round her waist.

"It is the meaning of the moonlight, and the essence of the poetry,"
continued the impassioned girl. "I did not know then why I liked such
things, but now I know. It was because I longed to be loved."

"And to love."

"Oh, yes. I would be nothing without that. But that, you know, is
your delight,--or should be. The other is mine. And yet it is a
delight to love you; to know that I may love you."

"You mean that this is the realisation of your romance."

"Yes; but it must not be the end of it, Adolphus. You must like the
soft twilight, and the long evenings when we shall be alone; and you
must read to me the books I love, and you must not teach me to think
that the world is hard, and dry, and cruel,--not yet. I tell Bell so
very often; but you must not say so to me."

"It shall not be dry and cruel, if I can prevent it."

"You understand what I mean, dearest. I will not think it dry and
cruel, even though sorrow should come upon us, if you-- I think you
know what I mean."

"If I am good to you."

"I am not afraid of that;--I am not the least afraid of that. You do
not think that I could ever distrust you? But you must not be ashamed
to look at the moonlight, and to read poetry, and to--"

"To talk nonsense, you mean."

But as he said it, he pressed her closer to his side, and his tone
was pleasant to her.

"I suppose I'm talking nonsense n