d plaintive undulations.

"It is time for us to go," whispered Alice to her husband; "we are
evidently _de trop_ here"--and the wedded pair glided noiselessly off,
casting mischievous glances at the haughty Hortensia, who sat
absorbed in the music, and tears of sympathy and rapture ready to fall
from her eyes. It was a clear case of love at first sight.

From this pleasant reverie both musician and listener were suddenly
roused by little Emma, who, raising her head and shaking back the long
ringlets from her face, exclaimed,

"Oh, sister, hear that! There goes the champagne, and I am so hungry.
Come, let us go to dinner."

"Excuse me, madam," exclaimed the stranger, ceasing to play and
springing to his feet, "your beautiful little monitor is right. I was
already forgetting myself and venturing to dream as of old;" and he
offered his arm to Hortensia, with that polite freedom not only
permitted, but enjoined, by the etiquette of the pic-nic.

"And do you call it forgetfulness to dream?" inquired Hortensia.

"With so fair a reality before me, yes; but at other times to dream is
to live."

"Oh, yes, it _is_ nice to dream!" broke in the little Emma. "Almost as
nice as a wedding. Now last night I dreamt that you were married,
Haughty, like sister Alice."

A lambent rosy flame seemed to envelop for an instant the beautiful
Hortensia, disappearing instantly, yet leaving its scarlet traces on
cheek and brow.

"What say you, my pretty one," said the stranger, patting the lovely
child upon the head, "what say you to a sandwich and a glass of wine
with me, here on the greensward? (They had now approached the
_table_--if a snow-white damask spread upon the velvet grass, and
loaded with tempting viands could be called so.) Is not that better
than dreams?"

"I love wine, sir, but mamma and sister say I shouldn't drink it,
because it makes my eyes red. Now _your_ eyes are as bright as stars.
Do you drink wine?"

It was the stranger's turn to blush. And this little childish prattle
seemed to have removed the barrier of strangership from between the
two young people, who exchanged glances of a sort of merry vexation,
and seemed to understand each other as if they were old friends.

That was a merry meal, "all under the greenwood tree," and on the
margin of that sweet little fountain, whose waters came up to the very
lip of the turf, which it refreshed with a sparkling coolness that
ever renewed the brightness of the flow