"Yes, yes, dear child," said he. "Get a golden heart made of them. It
will be an emblem of the true heart you have to give him, and a pledge
to boot." Then, falling into one of his reveries, in which his mind
seemed occupied by some strong feeling--"I am thus reminded," he
continued, "of the old song you used to sing. There is a verse which I
hope will never be applicable to you as it was to me. I wish to hear it
for the last time," he added, with a languid smile, "in consideration of
the ounces."
Rachel knew the verse, because she had formerly noticed that it moved
some chord in his memory connected with an old love affair in which his
heart had been scathed; but she hesitated, for the meaning it conveyed
was dowie and ominous.
"Come, come," said he, "the fate will never be yours."
She complied, yet it was with a trembling voice. The tune is at best but
a sweet wail, and there was a misgiving of the heart which imparted the
thrilling effect of a gipsy's farewell--
"If I had wist ere I had kisst,
That true love was so ill to win,
I'd have lock'd my heart in some secret part,
And bound it with a silver pin."
"Now you may take the ounces," said he with a sigh. "The verse has more
meaning to me than you wot off, and surely, I hope, less to you."
And having thus gratified his whim--if that could be called a whim which
was a desire to have repeated to him a sentiment once to him, as he
hinted, a reality connected with the young heart when it was lusty, and
his pulse strong and thick with the blood of young life--- she went to
the bureau, and, taking three of the ounces, she left the room.
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