Another instant, and the music ended: the leafy screen was divided, and she was the centre of the little company, every one of whom rejoiced to welcome her. She seated herself by Ethel: and declaring that her walk had left her no breath as yet to talk, urged them to resume the harmony that she had interrupted. All were too young, and too intimate, for the embarrassment of ceremony, and again music broke on the stillness of the night.
It was an old English air, to which the vocalists had set the words of a sonnet, written by Walter Maynard. The words of the song were sad: but what is the young poet's melancholy but prophecy?
Dream no more of that sweet time
When the heart and cheek were young;
Dream no more of that sweet time
Ere the veil from life was flung.
Yet the cheek retains the rose
Which its beauty had of yore,
But the bloom upon the heart
Is no more.
We have mingled with the false,
Till belief has lost the charm
Which it had when hope was new!
And the pulse of feeling warm.
