She was blushing and confused; but there was a dreamy blissful air about her, as if she hardly heard these characteristic comments on her choice. She freed herself gently from Una, and went up to her mother, who, laughing, but with something of real tenderness, kissed her, and took her away. Tory gave a skip. "What a jolly lark," she said. "It's no such thing," cried Una with passionate vehemence, as she rushed out of the room. "It's losing the only thing that made life tolerable, and I'd like to go and hang myself at once." "I'll tell you what it is, Kat," said Tory. "Una's too great a fool for anything, and some day I shall tell Amethyst all about Tony." "Una will half kill you if you do," said Tory. "Never mind about that now. Let's go into the garden, then we can peep in at the windows and see Amethyst and her young man!" There ensued a time which seemed to Amethyst afterwards like a piece out of an age of gold, each day more full than the one before it of absorbing, intoxicating bliss. There was the day when Lucian brought the ring, set with her namesake jewel, and put it on the pink girlish finger that had never worn a ring before, then spread out her soft delicate hand on his brown palm, and looked at it proudly, saying, "That shall stay there always. That means you belong to me." And the two hands closed tight upon each other, as if they never would unclasp again. The first Sunday, too, when they went to church together, and gave thanks from the bottom of their young honest hearts for their great happiness, and when the hymn of the Heavenly City rang in Amethyst's ears with vague and mystic rapture. Heaven was near and earth was good, and she did not quite know the one from the other. All was joy. As they came out, Lucian, with his shy, boyish smile, showed her a line in his hymn-book with a deep under-score. "Thine ageless walls are bonded With _amethysts unpriced_..." "Oh, Lucian," she said, half shocked, "but you shouldn't think about me in church!" "Yes, I should," said Lucian. "I shall think about you everywhere. Besides, we shall go to church together all our lives, you know, at Toppings. Then we'll remember to-day." "As if we could ever forget it!" said Amethyst dreamily, while her heart beat, and her eyes shone. "I never shall, as long as I live," said Lucian. "Look there, look at those long-tailed tits swinging in the hedge. Do you know they grow those long tails quite smooth and straight in a little round nest? How do they manage it?" Lucian made his profession of life-long remembrance, and called her attention to the tits, much in the same tone of voice. He was not an emotional person, and his talk was mostly of what passed before his observant eyes.