"Nay! we have no time to lose, for the posy must be large. There are many flowers needed to make the bunch of happiness complete. Thou must help me to pick them, for some of them are too high for me to reach. But thou art tall! See …" she said, pointing eagerly up to the great floral canopy, whence masses of blossoms hung in fragrant shower, "that perfect lily up there, would it not make a lovely centre for the bunch? Thou art so tall," she repeated with a pretty gesture of entreaty, "wilt reach it down for me?"
And Hugh obediently stretched his long limbs and with much difficulty succeeded in disentangling the coveted lily.
"Is it not beautiful?" she said admiringly, "so chaste! but oh! so cold. Dost know, oh, beloved of the gods, what the white lily of Kamt means?"
He shook his head.
"All flowers have a meaning, of course, and the lily means duty," she said with a sigh, "that is why it seems so cold, even cruel, in its waxy, spotless whiteness, but it must form the centre of the bunch, for I think thou dost love duty dearly, too dearly methinks, and perhaps wouldst not be happy without it. But," she added more gaily, "we will soften her waxy coldness: dost see that graceful bunch of white acacia? that means homely happiness. It would look well in graceful clusters round the stern centre of duty."
He was listening to her merry talk, I fancied, with a slightly puzzled air sometimes. Still less than I could he guess why she had come; but her presence made him happy for the moment, and it was quite gaily that he said: "But I cannot reach the homely happiness."
"Oh, what a pity!" she said earnestly. "Duty will look so ugly without home to soften it."
