John lay looking at them and at her, as if, oblivious of past and future, his whole life were absorbed into that one exquisite hour.
For me--where I sat I do not clearly know, nor probably did any one else.
"There," said Miss March to herself, in a tone of almost childish satisfaction, as she arranged the last hyacinth to her liking.
"They are very beautiful," I heard John's voice answer, with a strange trembling in it.

"It is growing too dark to judge of colours; but the scent is delicious, even here." "I could move the table closer to you." "Thank you--let me do it--will you sit down ?" She did so, after a very slight hesitation, by John's side.

Neither spoke--but sat quietly there, with the sunset light on their two heads, softly touching them both, and then as softly melting away.
"There is a new moon to-night," Miss March remarked, appositely and gravely.
"Is there?
Then I have been ill a whole month.

For I remember noticing it through the trees the night when--" He did not say what night, and she did not ask.

To such a very unimportant conversation as they were apparently holding my involuntary listening could do no harm.
"You will be able to walk out soon, I hope," said Miss March again.
"Norton Bury is a pretty town." John asked, suddenly--"Are you going to leave it ?" "Not yet--I do not know for certain--perhaps not at all.