The Maid of Maiden Lane

Arenta would gladly have gone into the garden also, but her aunt detained her. "Can you not see," she asked, "that those two are in love with each other? Give love its hour. They do not want your company."

"And for that very reason I wish to go with them. My brother is in love with Cornelia, and I am for Rem, and not for a stranger--also, my father and Cornelia's father are both for Rem; and, besides, Doctor Moran hates the Hydes. He will not let Cornelia marry the man."

"HE WILL NOT LET! When did Doctor John become omnipotent? Love laughs at fathers, as well as at locksmiths. And if Doctor John is against young Hyde, then I shall the more cheerfully be for him--a pleasant, handsome youth as ever I saw, is he; and Doctor John--well, he is neither pleasant nor handsome."

"Aunt Angelica! I am astonished at you! Every one will contradict what you say."

"For that reason, I will maintain it. It is not my way to shout with the multitude."

With some hesitation, yet quite carried away by Hyde's personal longing and impulse, Cornelia went into the garden with her lover. It was a green, shady place, full of great maple-trees and flowering vines and shrubs, and patches of green grass. All kinds of sweet old-fashioned flowers grew there, mingling their scent with the strawberries' perfume and the woody odours of the ripening cherries. They were alone in this lovely place; the high privet hedges hid them from the outside world, and the babble and rumble of Broadway came to them only as the murmur of noise in a dream. Speechless with joy, Hyde clasped Cornelia's slender fingers, and they went together down the few broad low steps which led them into the green shadows of the trees. How soft was the grassy turf! How exquisite the westering sunlight, sifting through the maple leaves! They looked into each other's eyes and smiled, but were too happy to speak. For they had suddenly come into that land, which is east of the sun, and west of the moon; that land not laid down on any chart, but which we feel to be our rightful heritage.

Slowly, as they stepped, they came at length to a little summerhouse. It was covered with a thick jessamin vine; and the mysterious, languorous perfume of its starlike flowers filled the narrow resting-place with the very atmosphere of love. They sat down there, and in a few moments the seal was broken and Hyde's heart found out all the sweetest words that love could speak. Cornelia trembled; she blushed, she smiled, she suffered herself to be drawn close to his side; and, at last, in some sweet, untranslatable way, she gave him the assurance of her love. Then they found in delicious silence the eloquence that words were incompetent to translate; time was forgotten, and on earth there was once more an interlude of heavenly harmony in which two souls became one and Paradise was regained.