CHAPTER V.
ARONDELLE'S CONSOLATION.
On the next day, at the appointed hour, Salome came down to the drawing-room dressed for her ride.
She wore a rich habit of dark blue summer-cloth, fastened with small gold buttons, fine, tiny white linen cuffs and collar, dark blue gloves, dark blue velvet hat with a short, white ostrich plume secured by a small gold butterfly, and she carried in her hand a slender ivory-handled riding-whip, set with a sapphire.

Her dress was neat, elegant, and appropriate; and her face was for the moment radiant and beautiful from inward joy.
In due time, the young marquis presented himself, and the lovers went forth for their ride.
It is not necessary to linger over this courtship, in which "the course of true love" ran so smooth as to seem monotonous to all but the lovers themselves.
The ride was followed by the small dinner party.

And after that the young marquis became a daily visitor at Elmthorpe House, where he was ever received with fatherly affection by Sir Lemuel, and with subdued delight by Salome.
The lovers had come to a mutual understanding for days before the marquis made a formal proposal for Miss Levison's hand.
But it happened one evening that they found themselves alone in the drawing-room.

They were seated at a table, loaded with books of engravings, photographs, and so forth.
Salome was turning over the pages of Dore's Milton.
"Close the volume, now, Miss Levison," Lord Arondelle said at length, uttering the formal words with a tone and look of such reverential tenderness as to seem a caress.
Salome shut the book, and looked up to read the open volume of his eloquent face; but her eyes instantly sank beneath the gaze of ardent passion that met them.
"Listen to me, Salome, my beloved; for I love you, and have loved you ever since the first moment when I met the beautiful spirit beaming through your sweet eyes--'Sweetest eyes were ever seen!' Dear eyes! look on me!" Salome, for all her profound and ardent affections, was still a very shy maiden.

She wished to raise her eyes to his; she wished to pour her heart out to him; to let him have the comfort of knowing how perfectly she loved him, how utterly she was his own.