Some of the houses had gardened spaces
about them, from which stole, like breaths of sweetest and saddest
regret, the perfume of midsummer flowers,--the despair of the rose for
the bud. As they passed a certain house, a song fluttered out of the open
window and ceased, the piano warbled at the final rush of fingers over
its chords, and they saw her with her fingers resting lightly on the
keys, and her graceful head lifted to look into his; they saw him with
his arm yet stretched across to the leaves of music he had been turning,
and his face lowered to meet her gaze.
"Ah, Basil, I wish it was we, there!"
"And if they knew that we, on our wedding journey, stood outside, would
not they wish it was they, here?"
"I suppose so, dearest, and yet, once-upon-a-time was sweet. Pass on; and
let us see what charm we shall find next in this enchanted city."
"Yes, it is an enchanted city to us," mused Basil, aloud, as they
wandered on, "and all strange cities are enchanted. What is Rochester to
the Rochesterese? A place of a hundred thousand people, as we read in our
guide, an immense flour interest, a great railroad entrepot, an unrivaled
nursery trade, a university, two commercial colleges, three collegiate
institutes, eight or ten newspapers, and a free library.
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