"O Swallow, flying from the golden woods,
Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine,
And tell her, tell her that I follow thee."
The wooing which followed made a curious impression; this impression
was not only produced upon the house, but upon both Prince and
Princess.
Priscilla, too, had encountered Hammond's earnest gaze. That gaze
fired her heart, and she became once again not herself but he; poor,
awkward and gauche little Prissie sank out of sight; she was Hammond
pleading his own cause, she was wooing Maggie for him in the words of
Tennyson's Prince. This fact was the secret of Priscilla's power; she
had felt it more or less whenever she acted the part of the Prince;
but, on this occasion, she communicated the sensations which animated
her own breast to Maggie. Maggie, too, felt that Hammond was speaking
to her through Priscilla's voice.
"I cannot cease to follow you, as they say
The seal does music; who desire you more
Than growing boys their manhood; dying lips,
With many thousand matters left to do,
The breath of life; O more than poor men wealth,
Than sick men health-- yours, yours, not mine-- but half
Without you; with you, whole; and of those halves
You worthiest, and howe'er you block and bar
Your heart with system out from mine, I hold
That it becomes no man to nurse despair,
But in the teeth of clench'd antagonisms
To follow up the worthiest till he die.
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