I may not deny that my gloomy
"constitutional" seemed, thenceforward, a shade or two less dreary; but,
though community of suffering does much abridge ceremony, it was some
days before I interchanged with the fair captives any sign beyond the
mechanical lifting of my cap when I entered and left their presence,
duly acknowledged from above. One evening I chanced to be loitering
almost under their window; a low, significant cough made me look up; I
saw the flash of a gold bracelet and the wave of a white hand, and there
fell at my feet a fragrant pearly rosebud nestling in fresh green
leaves. My thanks were, perforce, confined to a gesture and a dozen
hurried words, but I would the prison beauty could believe that fair
Jane Beaufort's rose was not more prized than hers, though the first was
a love token granted to a king, the last only a graceful gift to an
unlucky stranger. I suppose that most men, whose past is not utterly
barren of romance, are weak enough to keep some withered flowers till
they have lived memory down, and I pretend not to be wiser than my
fellows. Other fragrant messengers followed in their season, but, if
ever I "win hame to mine ain countrie," I make mine avow to enshrine
that first rosebud in my _reliquaire_, with all honor and solemnity,
there to abide till one of us shall be dust.
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