Ah, well! it was an aromatic evening. Disraeli says that Ferdinand Armine had a Sicilian conversation with Henrietta Temple, in the conservatory. You know how it ended, and they knew how it would end,--they were married. But if Ferdinand had plunged into that abyss of excitement, knowing that however Sicilian his conversation might be, it would all end in a bachelor's quarters, with Henrietta as a lay figure of memory, which he might amuse himself in draping with a myriad rainbow fancies--if he had known this, ought he to have advanced farther in the divine darkness of that prospect? Ought he not to have said, "Dear Miss Temple, my emotions are waxing serious, and I am afraid of them, and will retire." You will say, "certainly," of course. We all say, "certainly," when we read or talk about it quietly. Young men at Saratoga and Newport say, "certainly," over their cigars. But when the weed is whiffed away, they dress for conquest, and draw upon the Future for the consequences. Unhappily, the Future is perfectly "good," and always settles to the utmost copper. At least, so Herbert says, and he is older than I am. I only know--in fact, I only cared, that the evening fled away like a sky-lark singing up to the sun at daybreak--(that was a much applauded sentence in my valedictory). I deliberately cut every cable of remorse that might have held me to the "ingenuous course," as it is called, and drove out into the shoreless sea of enjoyment. I revelled in Lulu's beauty, in her grace, in her thousand nameless charms. I was naturally sorry for her. I knew her young affections would "run to waste, and water but the desert." But if a girl will do so! Summer and the midsummer sun shone in a cloudless sky. There was nothing to do but live and love, and Lulu and I did nothing else. Through the motley aspects of Watering-Place existence, our life shot like a golden thread, embroidering it with beauty. We strolled on the piazza at morning and evening. During the forenoon we sat in the parlor, and Lulu worked a bag or a purse, and I sat by her, gossiping that gossip which is evanescent as foam upon champagne--yes, and as odorous and piercing, for the moment it lasts. We only parted to dress for dinner. I relinquished the Vivian Grey style, and returned to my own. Every day Lulu was more exquisitely dressed, and when the band played, after dinner, and the sunlight lay, golden-green, upon the smooth, thick turf, our conversation was inspired by the music, as on the first day, which seemed to me centuries ago, so natural and essential to my life had Lulu become. Toward sunset we drove to the lake. Sometimes in a narrow little wagon, not quite wide enough for two, and in which I sat overdrifted by the azure mist of the dress she wore--nor ever dreaming of the Autumn or the morrow; and sometimes with Herbert and his new horses.