“That owned the virtuous ring and glass.”
—_Il Penseroso_.
I
“Aurelia!”
“Otto!”
“Must we then part?”
They were folded in each other’s arms. There never was such kissing.
“How shall we henceforth exchange the sweet tokens of our undying
affection, my Otto?”
“Alas, my Aurelia, I know not! Thy Otto blushes to acquaint thee that
he cannot write.”
“Blush not, my Otto, thou needest not reproach thyself. Even couldest
thou write, thy Aurelia could not read. Oh these dark ages!”
They remained some minutes gazing on each other with an expression of
fond perplexity. Suddenly the damsel’s features assumed the aspect of
one who experiences the visitation of a happy thought. Gently yet
decidedly she pronounced:
“We will exchange rings.”
They drew off their rings simultaneously. “This, Aurelia, was my
grandfather’s.”
“This, Otto, was my grandmother’s, which she charged me with her dying
breath never to part with save to him whom alone I loved.”
“Mine is a brilliant, more radiant than aught save the eyes of my
Aurelia.”
And, in fact, Aurelia’s eyes hardly sustained the comparison. A finer
stone could not easily be found.
“Mine is a sapphire, azure as the everlasting heavens, and type of a
constancy enduring as they.”
In truth, it was of a tint seldom to be met with in sapphires.
The exchange made, the lady seemed less anxious to detain her lover.
“Beware, Otto!” she cried, as he slid down the cord, which yielded him
an oscillatory transit from her casement to the moat, where he alighted
knee-deep in mud. “Beware!—if my brother should be gazing from his
chamber on the resplendent moon!”
But that ferocious young baron was accustomed to spend his time in a
less romantic manner; and so it came to pass that Otto encountered him
not.