All around them the flowers bloomed in lavish profusion; the tender-eyed pansies, the golden-hearted lilies, the fragrant roses, shaking out perfume on the warm summer air, while the bees and the butterflies hurried from flower to flower, and overhead the blue sky of June smiled on the happy lovers--so happy, dreaming not of the darkened future. Where some luxuriant shrubbery formed a convenient screen, Love drew Dainty aside, crying, ardently: "I am dying to kiss you, my own little darling! May I?" Without waiting for consent, he clasped her in his arms, and kissed her lips again and again, with the ardor of the honey-bee rifling the flowers of their sweets, till she struggled bashfully from him, crying: "But the roses!" "Come, then, we will get them;" and they sauntered on along the graveled path in a sort of silent ecstacy, until suddenly Dainty recoiled with a horrified cry: "Oh, see that hideous viper!" Love looked down and saw a large viper crawling across their path, its hideous head upraised in defiance, hissing venomously at their advance. "See how angry it is! What a wicked glare in its eyes! See how its red forked tongue darts at us in rage! Oh, is it not an evil omen to our love?" half sobbed Dainty, drawing back and regarding the serpent with fearful interest mixed with unwilling fascination. "Stand aside, darling, and I will make short work of the evil omen!" Love answered, gayly, as with two sharp blows of the racquet he carried in his hand he destroyed the ominous intruder on their peace, and kicked it aside, saying, soothingly: "Take that as an omen, darling, that I will always thrust aside whatever interferes between us and happiness." "Oh, you are so strong, so brave! I am not afraid of anything while you are with me!" Dainty cried, clinging to the arm of her bold, handsome lover, who smiled on her so lovingly as he gathered the beautiful roses to replace those he had sent her that morning, and that were now withering at her waist. He took some of the fading flowers, kissed them, and placed them very carefully in his pocket-book, saying: "I will always keep them in memory of the happiest day of my life!" Dainty's heart thrilled with joy at the words; then she shuddered at the thought of how angry Olive and Ela would be because he loved her so well. "Perhaps they will hate me, although I have not done them any wrong. I did not make him love me. It was God put it into his heart. But I can guess how they will sneer and say I was bold and forward, trying to get a rich husband. I wish he were poor--almost as poor as I am--so that I could tell them I love him for himself alone, which is true, though they will pretend never to believe it, in their jealous spite," ran her perturbed thoughts; for she could not get Olive and Ela quite out of her mind.