"Are you going over to Rome, Harry?"
"No!" And Brent's eyes looked full into those of his friend,
straightly and steadfastly. "Not now. I will do the work appointed
for me to the end!"
"Thank God!" said Walden, simply. And their hands met in a close
grasp, thereby sealing a wordless compact, never to be broken.
The sun sank and the moon began to rise. Song and dance gradually
ceased, and the happy villagers began to disperse, and wend their
ways homeward. Love was in the air--love breathed in the perfume of
the flowers--love tuned the throats of the passionate nightingales
that warbled out their mating songs in every hazel copse and from
ever acacia bough in the Manor woods, and love seemed, as the poet
says, to 'sit astride o' the moon' as its silver orb peered over the
gables of the Manor itself and poured a white shower of glory on the
sweet face and delicate form of Maryllia, as she stood in the old
Tudor courtyard, now a veritable wilderness of flowers, with her
husband's arm round her, listening to the faint far-off singing of
the villagers returning to their homes through the scented green
lanes.
"Everyone has been happy to-day!" she said, looking up with a smile-
-"All the world around us seems to thank God!"
"All the world would thank Him if it could but find what we have
found!" answered John, drawing her close to his heart--"All it
wants, all it needs, both for itself and others, for this world and
the next, is simply--Love!"