She had been singing the old-fashioned hymn commencing,--
was repeated. The music was peculiar,--the notes rising and falling and rolling over each other like waves.
She had just stopped. Nobody moved. The silence was broken only by the rustling of the lilac-bushes, as the night-wind swept over them.
"The whispering of angels!" said Emily, softly.
I was pleased that she closed the door. It showed that she felt his unfitness to enter our little paradise. I took heart for David. And yet it was only the next day that came the crowning with hop-blossoms.
I had returned home early, and was in my own room, waiting for tea. Casting my eyes towards the garden, I saw Mary Ellen sitting beneath a tree, leaning against the trunk. Near by was a hop-pole, laden with its green. And near by, also, stood Warren Luce, holding in his hand a thin, square book. He had gathered a quantity of the beautiful hop-blossoms and tendrils, and was directing her how to arrange them about her head. It appeared to be his object to make her look like a picture in his book. "A little more to the right. A few leaves about the ear," I heard him say; and then, "They must drop a little lower on the other side. In the picture, the tendrils touch the left shoulder. Now hold the basket full of them, in this way. The blossoms must be trailing over it, and your right hand upon the handle. Not so. Let me show"--And as he touched her hand to place it in the right position, I almost sprang from my seat, I was so indignant for David.
I might have saved myself the trouble, though, for the next moment David himself appeared, walking slowly home from the Square, with something in a basket he was bringing for Emily. David was a good brother.
"Perfect!" exclaimed Warren, as he completed his _tableau_. "Just like the picture, only"--And here he dropped his voice.
"David, come here," he called out, "and see which picture is the prettiest."
Poor David! I saw that it was all he could do, to walk straight past without speaking.
"Take them off," said Mary Ellen. "They are heavy."
That evening, coming home late, I saw a bright light in her room, and glanced up, as I came near. She stood at the looking-glass between the windows, holding a light in her hand. Upon her head, trailing down upon her left shoulder, was a wreath of hop-blossoms. She wanted to know how she looked in them. At least, this was my interpretation of the vision. And while she held the light, first in one hand, then in the other, turning this way and that, I stood debating whether there was any harm in a girl's knowing she was pretty, or in her wishing to inform herself whether any adornments rather out of the common course--hop-blossoms, for instance--were becoming. That question, and the other, about all women being coquettes, remain in my mind undecided to this day.