In the solemn pause which followed, while they stood with dim eyes and heads bowed, it seemed as if some silent spirit stood among them in the rich glory of the room. The thrilling feeling slowly died away like failing music, and timidly looking up, Wentworth saw the eyes of Muriel sink from their celestial height and rest kindly and lovingly on him. “Come to me, Richard,” she said. “You alone have not spoken to me—you alone have not expressed your joy.” “Muriel,” he answered, moving near her, with a timid and tardy step, “if so bad a boy as I am”— “Bad? oh, no! You are not a bad boy,” she said with tender playfulness, caressing him as she spoke. “You are my own dear brother Richard, gallant, and fond, and true. Could I love you if you were not? Could I kiss you thus, and thus, and thus, with magic kisses three?” she said, kissing him each time as she said the word, and smiling at him with bewitching gaiety. “Ah! I am very happy this morning! That is the reason you all admire me so. See: my joy has burst into its fullest flower, and this is its color and its symbol.” Smiling upon them, she laid her hand on her gorgeous crimson robe. “I see,” said Emily, “Madame de Staël said the color of the trumpet-sound was crimson, and the sound of the golden trumpet is the sound of joy. Oh, Muriel, I never saw you dressed so admirably. You are splendid as the sun!” “Yes, and mark you now,” said Wentworth, gaily, “there is another symbol here. This is the color of the dress of the fairy prince. Ah, it is the same dress, too, if you only knew it. The fairy prince wove a spell of weird, gave one touch of the magic wand, and lo! the crimson cymar changed into a crimson robe, and the fairy prince stands before you transformed into a fairy princess!” “Bravo, Richard!” said Harrington, “that is ingenious, now.” “And then,” continued Wentworth, “the gold embroidery on the cymar melted into gold lustre, and passed into Muriel’s eyes. See how golden her eyes are this morning. Their clear grey looks through a transparent sheen of gold.” “They are golden with love, then,” said Muriel, laughingly, “for the cymar is up-stairs, with all its embroidery intact. It is Harrington who is the fairy prince, and I am the Sleeping Beauty whom he waked from her sleep of twenty years, and now I am to follow him through all the world. But come, John, I promised you an agreeable surprise this morning, you know.” “Well, and have you not given it to me?” said Harrington, smiling at her. “This beautiful room, all bedecked with roses, and then yourself in your miraculous beauty—why, I am in receipt of two agreeable surprises!” “Ah, John,” she replied, with enchanting gaiety, “but I have a third more wonderful than those.” “What is it?” asked Harrington, amusedly. “I’ll tell you,” she answered. “Friends, attention! My dear mother, do you remember the little conversation we had at dinner the day before yesterday?”