I Forbid the Banns! — page 193: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ON THE SONG OF THE NIGHTINGALE. 183 ‘‘I asked the butler not to light the candles,’’ said she. ‘This lovely light is too sweet to be shut out.’’ She pointed to the west. Above the dark trees of the park the sky was blue as a transparent turquoise. In the narrow spaces between tree trunks and the lower drooping boughs the mellow crimson faded into shell-pink, and about the topmost leaves a few light clouds floated: they were permeated with gold. High in the west the evening star was hanging like a lamp. ‘“And we shall hear the nightingale to-night,’’ said the girl in a rapt voice, that was scarcely a whisper. ‘“‘We shall hear the nightingale to-night,’’ he repeated. ‘We shall hear the nightingale singing beneath that star— the star of love—our star, dearest—our star.’’ ‘‘Our star,’’ she repeated. They actually believed that they had a joint proprietary in the evening star. | The Lord made the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night, and the evening star for Julian Charlton and Bertha Lancaster. ‘The nightingale sings to the roses,’’ said he. ‘‘The evening is full of the perfume of roses, dearest. What shall be forusto-night? The song of the nightingale, the perfume of roses, and the glow of the star of love over all.’’ She kept her eyes fixed upon the west. Through the silence that followed he could hear the beat- ing of a heart. He knew that it was not his own. When the gong sounded again he brought her into the dining room, and filled up her glass with the glorious red wine, that sparkled beneath the light of the candles in their silver sconces. It was an hour and a half before they returned to the draw- ing room. The Venetian glass chandeliers were listening with theirmany candles. Bertha seated herself at the piano- CORNIELIOOKS (€()