friend,' Farina mildly remonstrated. 'Lilies are indeed emblems of the
saints; but then they are not poor flowers of earth, being transfigured,
lustrous unfadingly. Oh, Cross and Passion! with what silver serenity thy
glory enwraps me, gazing on these fair bells! I look on the white sea of
the saints. I am enamoured of fleshly anguish and martyrdom. All beauty
is that worn by wan-smiling faces wherein Hope sits as a crown on Sorrow,
and the pale ebb of mortal life is the twilight of joy everlasting.
Colourless peace! Oh, my beloved! So walkest thou for my soul on the
white sea ever at night, clad in the straight fall of thy spotless virgin
linen; bearing in thy hand the lily, and leaning thy cheek to it, where
the human rose is softened to a milky bloom of red, the espousals of
heaven with earth; over thee, moving with thee, a wreath of sapphire
stars, and the solitude of purity around!'

'Ah!' sighed the Goshawk, dandling his flower-pot; 'the moon gives
strokes as well's the sun. I' faith, moon-struck and maid-struck in one!
He'll be asking for his head soon. This dash of the monk and the minstrel
is a sure sign. That 's their way of loving in this land: they all go
mad, straight off. I never heard such talk.'

Guy accompanied these remarks with a pitiful glance at his companion.

'Come, Sir Lover! lend me a help to give back what we've borrowed to its
rightful owner. 'S blood! but I feel an appetite. This night-air takes me
in the wind like a battering ram. I thought I had laid in a stout
four-and-twenty hours' stock of Westphalian Wurst at Master Groschen's
supper-table. Good stuff, washed down with superior Rhine wine; say your
Liebfrauenmilch for my taste; though, when I first tried it, I grimaced
like a Merry-Andrew, and remembered roast beef and Glo'ster ale in my
prayers.'