TWICE TOLD TALES

THE LILY'S QUEST

By Nathaniel Hawthorne



Two lovers, once upon a time, had planned a little summer-house, in
the form of an antique temple, which it was their purpose to
consecrate to all manner of refined and innocent enjoyments. There
they would hold pleasant intercourse with one another, and the circle
of their familiar friends; there they would give festivals of
delicious fruit; there they would hear lightsome music, intermingled
with the strains of pathos which make joy more sweet; there they would
read poetry and fiction, and permit their own minds to flit away in
daydreams and romance; there, in short,--for why should we shape out
the vague sunshine of their hopes?--there all pure delights were to
cluster like roses among the pillars of the edifice, and blossom ever
new and spontaneously. So, one breezy and cloudless afternoon, Adam
Forrester and Lilias Fay set out upon a ramble over the wide estate
which they were to possess together, seeking a proper site for their
Temple of Happiness. They were themselves a fair and happy spectacle,
fit priest and priestess for such a shrine; although, making poetry of
the pretty name of Lilias, Adam Forrester was wont to call her LILY,
because her form was as fragile, and her cheek almost as pale.

As they passed, hand in hand, down the avenue of drooping elms, that
led from the portal of Lilies Fay's paternal mansion, they seemed to
glance like winged creatures through the strips of sunshine, and to