moisture as for an instant they met the
dark glow in his.

'Do you know who I am?' she whispered.

'You are Veranilda! You are beauty and sweetness and divine purity--'

He sought her hand, but at this moment Aurelia turned towards them, and
the maiden, quivering, stood up.

'Perhaps the sun is too powerful,' said Aurelia, with her tenderest
smile. 'My lily has lived so long in the shade.'

They lingered a little on the shadowed side, Aurelia reviving memories
of her early life, then passed again under the vaulted arch. Basil,
whose eyes scarcely moved from Veranilda's face, could not bring
himself to address her in common words, and dreaded that she would soon
vanish. So indeed it befell. With a murmur of apology to her friend,
and a timid movement of indescribable grace in Basil's direction, she
escaped, like a fugitive wild thing, into solitude.

'Why has she gone?' exclaimed the lover, all impatience. 'I must follow
her--I cannot live away from her! Let me find her again.'

His cousin checked him.

'I have to speak to you, Basil. Come where we can be private.'

They entered the room where they had sat before, and Aurelia, taking up
the needlework left by Veranilda, showed it to her companion with
admiration.

'She is wondrous at this art. In a contest with Minerva, would she not
have fared better than Arachne? This mourning garment which I wear is
of her making, and look at the delicate work; it was wrought four years
ago, when I heard of my brother's death--wrought in a few days. She was
then but thirteen. In all that it beseems a woman to know, she is no
less skilled. Yonder lies her cithern; she learnt to touch it, I scarce
know how, out of mere desire to soothe my melancholy, and I
suspect--though she will not avow it--that the music she plays is often
her own. In sickness she has tended me with skill as rare as her
gentleness; her touch on the hot forehead is like that of a flower
plucked before sunrise. Hearing me speak thus of her, what think you, O
Basil, must be my trust in the man to whom I would give her for wife?'

'Can you doubt my love, O Aurelia?' cried the listener, clasping his
hands before him.

'Your love? No. But your prudence, is that as little beyond doubt?'

'I have thought long and well,' said Basil.

Aurelia regarded him steadily.

'You spoke with her in the garden just now. Did she reply?'

'But few words. She asked me if I knew her origin, and blushed as she
spoke.'