I was in the most contented frame of mind that can be conceived of until the very May month of the year I speak of, when my sensations, as usual, began to be peculiar. I don't think anybody can love summer better than I do, can more approvedly languish out, by heavy-shaded stream in an atmosphere all roses, the summer noons, can easier spend, in insomnie the lustrous moony nights.

But May does something to me of which I am not aware during June and July, or at the first delicate spring-time. When the laburnums rain their gold, and the lilacs toss broad-bloomed their grape-like clusters, when the leaves, full swelling, are yet all veined with light, I cannot very well work hard, and would rather slave the livelong eleven months besides, to have that month a holiday. So it happened now; and though I had no absolute right to leave my pupils and desert the first stones of my musical masonry just laid and smoothed, I was obliged to think that if I were to have a holiday at all, I had better take it then. But I had not decided until I received a double intimation,—one from Davy, and one from the county newspaper, which last never chronicled events that stirred in London unless they stirred beyond it. My joyous brother brought me the letter, and the paper was upon our table the same morning when I came down to breakfast.

"See here, Charles," said Clo, who, sitting in her own corner, over her own book, was unwontedly excited; "here is a piece of news for you, and my mother found it first!"

I read, in a castaway paragraph enough, that the Chevalier Seraphael, the pianist and composer, was to pay a visit to England this very summer; though to remain in strict seclusion, he would not be inaccessible to professors. He brought with him, I learned, "the fruits of several years' solitary travel, no doubt worthy of his genius and peculiar industry."

Extremely to the purpose were these expressions, for they told me all I wanted to know,—that he was alive, must be himself again, and had been writing for those who loved him,—for men and angels. Now, for my letter. I had held it without opening it, for I chose to do so when alone, and waited until after breakfast. It was a choice little supplement to that choicest of all invites for my spirit and heart,—a note on foreign paper; the graceful, firm character of the writing found no difficulty to stand out clear and black from that milk-and-water hue and spongy texture. It was from Clara,—a simple form that a child might have dictated, yet containing certain business reports for Davy, direct as from one who could master even business.

She was coming definitely to England, not either for any purposes save those all worthy of herself; she had accepted, after much consideration, a London engagement for the season; and, said she,—

"I only have my fears lest I should do less than I ought for what I love best; it is so difficult to do what is right by music in these times, when it is fashionable to seem to like it. You will give me a little of your advice, dear sir, if I need it, as perhaps I may; but I hope not, because I have troubled you too much already. I trust your little daughter is growing like you to please her mother, and like her mother to please you. I shall be delighted to see it when I come to London, if you can allow me to do so."

The style of this end of a letter both amused and absorbed me; it was Clara's very idiosyncrasy. I could but think, "Is it possible that she has not altered more than her style of expressing herself has done? I must go and see."

Davy received my ravings with due compassion and more indulgence than I had dared to hope. The suspension of my duties, leaving our orchestra in limbo still longer, disconcerted him a little; but he was the first to say I must surely go to London. The only thing to be discovered was when to go, so as not to frustrate either one of my designs or the other; and I declared he must, to that end, address Clara on the very subject.

He did so, and in a fortnight there came the coolest note to say she would be in London the next day, and that she had heard the great musician would arrive before the end of the month. I inly marvelled whether in all the course of his wanderings Clara and the Chevalier had met; but still I thought and prophesied not. I was really reluctant to leave Davy with his hands and head full, that I might saunter with my own in kid-gloves, and swarming with May fancies; but for once my selfishness—or something higher, whose mortal frame is selfishness—impelled me. I found myself in the train at the end of the next week, carrying Clara's address in my memorandum-book, and my violin-case in the carriage along with me.

It was early afternoon, and exquisitely splendid weather when I arrived in London. In London, however, I had little to do just then, as the address of the house to which I was bound was rather out of London,—above the smoke, beyond the stir, at the very first plunge into the surrounding country that lingers yet as a dream upon her day reality, with which dreams suit not ill, and from which they seldom part. I love the heart of London, in whose awful deeps reflect the mysterious unfathomable of every secret, and where the homeless are best at home, where the home-bred fear not to wander, assured of sweet return; but I do not love its immediate precincts,—the rude waking stage between that profound and the conserved, untainted sylvan vision, that, once overpast it, dawns upon us.

Dashing as abruptly as possible, and by the nearest way through all the brick wilderness outward, I reached in no long weary time, and by no long weary journey, though on foot, a quiet road, which by a continuous but gentle rise carried me to the clustered houses, neither quite hamlet nor altogether village, where Miss Benette had hidden her heart among the leaves.

Cool and shady was the side I took, though the sunshine whitened the highway, and every summer promise beamed from the soft sky's azure, the green earth's bloom. The painted gates I met at intervals, or the iron-wreathed portals, guarded dim walks, through whose perspective villas glistened, all beautiful as they were discerned afar in their frames of tossing creepers, with gay verandas or flashing green-houses. But the wall I followed gave me not a transient glimpse of gardens inwards, so thickly blazed the laburnums and the paler flames of the rich acacia, not to speak of hedges all sweet-brier, matted into one embrace with double-blossomed hawthorn. I passed garden after garden and gate after gate, seeing no one; for the great charm of those regions consists in the extreme privacy of every habitation,—privacy which the most exclusive nobleman might envy, and never excel in his wilderness parks or shrubberies; and when at length I attained the summit of the elevation where two roads met and shut in a sweep of actual country, and I came to the end of the houses, I began to look about for some one to direct me; then, turning the corner, I came in turning upon what I had been seeking, without having really sought it by any effort.

The turn in the road I speak of went tapering off between hedgerows; and meadow-lands, as yet unencroached upon, swept within them as far as I could see. But just where I stood, a cottage, older than any of the villas, and framed in shade more ancient than the light groves I left behind me, peeped from the golden and purple May-trees across a moss-green lawn,—a perfect picture in its silence, and a very paradise of fragrance. It was built of wood, and had its roof-hung windows and drooping eaves protected by a spreading chestnut-tree, whose great green fans beat coolness against every lattice, and whose blossoms had kindled their rose-white tapers at the sun. The garden was so full of flowers that one could scarcely bear the sweetness, except that the cool chestnut shadow dashed the breeze with freshness as it swept the heavy foliage and sank upon the checkered grass to a swoon. I was not long lost in contemplating the niche my saint had chosen, for I could have expected nothing fitter; but I was at some loss to enter, for the reminiscences of my childhood burdened me, and I dreaded lest I should be deprived of anything I now held stored within me, by a novel shock of being. I need not have feared.

After waiting till I was ashamed, I opened the tiny gate and walked across the grass, still soft with the mowing of the morning, to the front door, where I pulled a little bell-handle half smothered in the wreaths of monthly roses that were quivering and fluttering like pink doves about the door and lower windows. This was as it should be, the very door-bell dressed with flowers; but more as it should be, it was that ThonÉ opened the door. I was almost ready to disappear again, but that her manner was the most reassuring to troublesome nerves. She did not appear to have any idea who I was, nor did she even stare when I presented my card, but like some strange bronze escaped from its pedestal, and attired in muslin, she conducted me onwards down a little low hall, half filled with the brightest plants, into a double parlor, whose folding-doors were closed, and whose diamond-paned back window looked out far, and very far, into the country.

Hearing not a voice in the next room, nor any rustle, nor even a soft foot hastily cross the beamed ceiling overhead, I dared look about me for a moment, hid my hat in confusion under a chair, saw that the round table had a bowl of flowers in its centre, caught sight of my face in the intensely polished glass-door of a small closed book-case, and, as if detected in some act, walked away to the window.

I could not have done a better thing to prepare myself for any fresh excitement; I was ready in an instant to weep with joy at the beauty that flooded my spirit. Over and beyond the garden I gazed; it did not detain my eye,—I passed its tree-tops, all apple-bloom and lilac, and its sudden bursts of grass where the tree-tops parted. I looked out to the country,—an undulating country, a sea of green, flushed here and there with a bloomy level, or a breeze upon the crimson clover; odorous bean-fields quivered, and their scent was floating everywhere,—it drowned the very garden sweetness, and blended in with waftures of unknown fragrance, all wild essences shed from woodbines, from dog-roses, and the new-cut grass, or plumy meadow-sweet, by the waters of rills flowing up into the distance, silver in the sunlight. Soft hills against the heaven swept over visionary valleys; the sunshine lay white and warm upon glistening summer seas and picture cottages; over all spread the purple, melting, brooding sky, transparent on every leaf and blossom, shining upon those tender sloping hills with an amethyst haze of light, not shade.

As I stood, the things that seemed had never been, and the things that had been grew dilated and indefinitely bright,—the soft thrall of the suspense that bound me intertwining itself with mine "electric chain" as that May-dream mixed itself with all my music, veiling it as moonlight, the colors of the flowers, or as music itself veils passion.

I waited quite half an hour, and had lost myself completely, feeling as if no change could come, when, without a sound, some one entered behind me. I knew it by the light that burst through the folding-door, which had, however, again closed when I turned, for the tread was so silent I might otherwise have gone dreaming on. Clara stood before me, so little altered that I could have imagined that she had been put away in a trance when I left her last, and but this instant was restored to me.

She was not more womanly, nor less child-like; and for her being an actress, it seemed a thing impossible. I could but stand and gaze; nor did she seem surprised, nor did her eyes droop, nor her fair cheek mantle: through the untrembling lashes I caught the crystal light as she opposed me, still waiting for me to speak.

I was heartily ashamed at last, and resolved to make her welcome as she maintained that strange regard. I put out my hand, and in an instant she greeted me; the infantine smile shone suddenly that had soothed me so long ago.

"I am very glad to see you, Miss Benette. It was very kind of you to let me come."

"By no means," she replied, with the slightest possible Italian softening of her accent. "I am very much obliged to you, and I am very pleased also. Please sit down, sir, for you have been standing, I am afraid, a long time. I was out at first, and since I returned I made haste; but still, I fear, I have kept you waiting."

"I could have waited all day, Miss Benette, to see such a window as this. How did you manage to put your foot into such a nest?"

"It is a very sweet little place, and the country is most beautiful. I don't know what they mean by its being too near London. I must be near London, and yet I could not exactly live in it, for it makes me idle."

"How very strange! It has the same effect upon me,—that is to say, I always dream in those streets, and lose half my purpose. Still, it must be almost a temptation to indulge a certain kind of idleness here; in such a garden as that, for example, one could pass all one's time."

"I do pass half my time in the garden, and yet I do not think it is too much, for it makes me well; and I cannot work when I am not well,—I was always unfortunate in that respect."

"How do you think I look, by the by, Miss Benette? Am I very much changed? It is perhaps, however, not a safe question."

"Quite safe, sir. You have grown more and more like your inseparable companion,—you always had a look of it, and now it takes the place of all other expression."

"I don't know whether that is complimentary or not, you see, for I never heard your opinion in old times. I was a very silly boy then, and not quite so well aware of what I owed to you as I may be now."

"I do not feel that you owe anything to anybody, Mr. Auchester, for you would have gone to your own desires as resolutely through peril as through pleasure; at all events, if you are still as modest as you were, it is a great blessing now you have become a soul which bears so great a part. If I must speak truth, however, about your looks, you seem as delicate as you used to be, and I do not suppose you could be anything else. You have not altered except to have grown up."

"And you, if I may say so, have not altered in growing up."

Nor had she. She had not gained an inch in height. She could never have worn that black silk frock those years; yet the folds, so grave and costly, still shielded her gentle breast to meet the snow-soft ruffle that fringed her throat: nor had she ornament upon her,—neither bracelet nor ring upon the dimpled hands, the delicate wrists. Though her silken hair had lengthened into wreaths upon wreaths behind, she still preserved those baby-curls upon her temples, nor had a shade more majesty gathered to her brow,—the regal innocence was throned there, and looked forth from her eyes as from a shrine; but it was evident that there was nothing about her from head to foot on which she piqued herself,—a rare shortcoming of feminine maturity. The only perceptible difference in the face was when she spoke or smiled; and then the change, the deepened sweetness, can be no more given to description than the notion of music to the destitute ear. It was something of a reserve too inward to be approached, and too subtile to subdue its own influence,—like perfume from unseen flowers diffusing itself when the wind awakens, while we know neither whence the windy fragrance comes nor whither it flows.

"Is it possible, Miss Benette," I continued,—for I forced myself absolutely to speak; I should so infinitely have preferred to watch her silently,—"that you can have passed through so much since I saw you?"

"No, I have lived a very quiet life; it is you who have lived in all the stir until you fancy there is not any calm at all."

"I should have certainly found calm here. But you, I thought, and indeed I know, have had every kind of excitement ready made to your hand, and only waiting for you to touch the springs."

"I have had no excitement till I came here."

"None? Why, who could have had more, and who could have borne the same so bravely? We have heard of you here, and it must have been a transcending tempest for the shock to echo so far."

"I do not call singing in theatres, and acting, excitement. I always felt cool and collected in them, for I knew they were not real, and that I should get through them soon, and very glad should I be; so I was patient and did my best. You look at me shocked. I knew I should shock you after all our talk."

"Oh, fie! Miss Benette, to talk so, then, and to shock yourself, as you must, if you are faithless."

"Poor I, faithless! Well, I am not important enough for it to signify. And yet I should like to tell you what I mean, because you were always kind to me, and I should not wish you to despise me now. No, Mr. Auchester, I am not faithless; I love music more and more; it is the form of my religion; I dare to call it altogether holy,—I am sure, indeed, it must be so, or it would have been trodden long ago into nothing with the evil they have heaped over it to hide it, and the mistakes they have made about it. I act and I sing, because that is what I can do best; but my idea of music goes with yours, and therefore I am not excited as I should be, if I were filling up a place such as that which you fill; though I would not leave my own for any consideration, and hope to continue in it. My excitement since I came here, where most ladies would be dull or sick, has arisen from the feeling that I am brought into contact with what is most like music, as I always find solitude, and also because since I came I have been raised higher by several spirits which are lofty in their desires, instead of being dragged through a mass of all opinions as I was abroad. My pleasures here are so great that I feel my soul to be quite young again, and to grow younger; and you cannot fancy what it is to return here after being in London, because you do not go to London, and if you did go to London, you would not do as I do."

She turned to me here, and told me it was her dinner-hour, asking me to remain and dine with her. It was about two o'clock, and I hesitated not to stay,—indeed, I know not that I could have gone.

We arose together, and I led her forward. We crossed the hall to a door beyond us, when, removing her little hand from my arm, and laying it on the lock, she looked into my face and smiled.

"You remembered me so well that I hope you will remember an old friend of mine who is staying here with me."

Before I could reply, or even marvel, she opened the door, and we entered. The little dining-room was lined with warmer hues than the airy drawing-room, but white muslin curtains made sails within the crimson ones, and some person stood within these, lightly screened, and looking out over the blind.

"Laura," said Miss Benette, and she turned with exquisite elegance. Had it not been for her name, which touched my memory, I could not have remembered her,—certainly, at least, not then.

Perhaps, when we were seated opposite at table, with nothing between us but a vase of garden flowers, I might have made out her lineaments; but I was called upon by my reminding chivalry to assist the hostess in the dissection of spring chickens and roasted lamb, and there was something besides about that very Laura I did not like to face until she should at least speak and reveal herself, as by the voice one cannot fail to do.

However she spoke not, nor did Clara speak to her, though we two talked a good deal,—that is to say, I talked, as so it behooved me to behave, and as I wished to see Miss Benette eat. When, at last, all traces of the snowy damask were swept out by a pair of careful hands, and we were left alone with the cut decanters, the early strawberries, and sweet summer oranges, I did determine to look, for fear Miss Lemark should think I did not dare to do so. I was not mistaken, as it happened, in believing her to be quite capable of this construction, as I discovered on regarding her immediately.

Her childish nonchalance had ripened into a hauteur quite alarming; for though she was scarcely my own age, she might have been ten years older. Not that her form was not lithe,—lithe as it could be to be endowed with the proper complement of muscles,—but for a certain sharpness of outline her countenance would have been languid in repose; her brow retained its singular breadth, but had not gained in elevation; her eyes were large and lambent, fringed with lashes that swept her cheek, though not darker than her hair, which waved as the willow in slightly-turned tresses to her waist. That waist was so extremely slight that it scarcely looked natural, and yet was entirely so, as was evident from the way she moved in her clothes.

She afforded a curious contrast to Clara in her black silk robe, for she was dressed in muslin of the deepest rose-color, with an immense skirt, its trimmings lace entirely, the sleeves dropped upon her arms, which were loaded with bracelets of all kinds, while she wore a splendid chain upon her neck. She bore this over effect very well, and would not have become any other, it appeared to me, though there was something faded in her appearance even then,—a want of color in her aspect that demanded of costume the intensest contrasts.

"You have very much grown, Miss Lemark," I ventured to say, after I had contemplated her to my satisfaction. She had, indeed, grown; she was taller than I.

"So have you, Mr. Auchester."

"She has grown in many respects, Mr. Auchester, which you cannot imagine," said Clara, with a winning mischief in her glance.

"I should imagine anything you pleased, I am afraid, Miss Benette, if you inspired me. But I have been thinking it is a very curious thing that we should meet in this way, we three alone, after meeting as we did the first time in our lives."

"It was rather different then," exclaimed Laura, all abruptly, "and the difference is, not that we are grown up, but that when we met on the first occasion, we told each other our minds, and now we don't dare."

"I am sure I dare," I retorted.

"No, you would not, no more would Clara; perhaps I might, but it would be of no use."

"What did I say then that I dare not say now? I am sure I don't remember."

"You may remember," said Clara, smiling; "I think it is hardly fair to make her remind you."

"It is my desert, if I remembered it first. You thought me very vulgar, and you told me as much, though in more polite language."

"If I thought so then, I may be allowed to have forgotten it now, Miss Lemark, as I think your friend will grant, when I look at you."

"You do not admire my style, Mr. Auchester; I know you,—it is precisely against your taste. Even Clara does not approve of it, and you have not half her forbearance,—if, indeed, you have any."

"Nobody, Laura dear, would dispute that you can bear more dressing than I can; it does not suit me to wear colors, and you look like a flower in them. Does not that color suit her well, Mr. Auchester?"

"Indeed I think so, and especially this glorious weather, when the most vivid hues are starting out of every old stone. But Miss Lemark could afford to wear green,—a very unusual suitability; it is the hue of her eyes, I think."

Laura had looked down, with that hauteur more fixed than ever now the light of her eyes was lost; she drew in the corners of her mouth, and turned a shade colder, if not paler, in complexion. I could not imagine what she was thinking, till she said, without raising her eyes,—

"You know, Clara, that is not the reason you wear black and I do not. You know that you look well in anything, because nobody looks at anything you happen to wear. Besides, there is a reason I could give if I chose."

"There is no other reason that you know of, Laura," she answered, and then she asked me a question on quite another subject.

I was rather anxious to discover whether Laura had fulfilled her destiny as far as we had compassed ours; but I did not find it easy, for she scarcely spoke, and had not lost a certain abstraction in her air that alienated the observer insensibly from her. After dinner Clara rose, and I made some demonstration of going, which she met so that I could not refuse her invitation to remain at least an hour or two. We all three retired into the little drawing-room; Miss Benette placed me a chair in the open window which I had admired, and herself sat down opposite, easily as a child, and saying, "I will not be rude to-day, as I used to be, in taking out my work whenever you came."

"It suited you very well, however, and I perceive, by your kind present to my little niece, that you have not forgotten that delicate art of yours."

"I had laid it aside, except to work for babies, some time, but it was long since I had a baby to work for; and when Mr. Davy sent me word in such joy that his little girl was born, I was so rejoiced to be able to make caps and frocks."

"My sister was very much obliged to you on a former occasion too, Miss Benette."

"Yes, I suppose she was very much obliged that I did not accept Mr. Davy's hand, or would have been, only she did not know it!"

"I did not mean so. I was remembering whose handiwork graced her on her marriage-day."

"Oh! I forgot the veil. I have made several since that one, but not one like that exactly, because I desired that should be unique. You have not told me, Mr. Auchester, anything about Seraphael and his works."

I was so used to call him, and to hear him called, the Chevalier, that at first I started, but was soon in a deep monologue of all that had happened to me in connection with him and his music, only suppressing that which I was in the habit of reserving, even in my own mind, from my conscious self. In the midst of my relation, Laura, apparently uninterested, as she had been seated in a chair with a book in her hands, left the room, and we stayed in our talk and looked at each other at the same instant.

"Why do you look so, Mr. Auchester?" said Clara, half amused, but with a touch of perturbation too.

"I was expecting to be asked what I thought of that young lady, and you see I was agreeably disappointed, for you are too well-bred to ask."

"No such thing. I thought you would tell me yourself if you liked, but that you might prefer not to do so, because you are not one, sir, to assume critical airs over a person you have only seen a very few hours."

"You do me more than justice, Miss Benette. But though I despair of ever curing myself of the disposition to criticise, I am not inconvertible. I admire Miss Lemark; she is improved, she is distinguished,—a little more, and she would be lady-like."

"I thought 'lady-like' meant less than 'distinguished.' You make it mean more."

"Perhaps I do mean that Miss Lemark is not exactly like yourself, and that when she has lived with you a little longer, she will be indeed all that she can be made."

"That would be foolish to say so,—pardon!—for she has lived with me two years now, and has most likely taken as much from me by imitation as she ever will, or by what you perhaps would call sympathy."

"I find, or should fancy I might find, to exist a great dissympathy between you."

"I suppose 'dissympathy' is one of those nice little German words that are used to express what nobody ought to say. I thought you would not go there for nothing. If your dissympathy means not to agree in sentiment, I do not know that any two bodies could agree quite in feeling, nor would it be so pleasant as to be alone in some moods. I should be very sorry never to be able to retreat into the cool shade, and know that, as I troubled nobody, so nobody could get at me. Would not you?"

"Oh! I suppose so, in the sense you mean. But how is it I have not heard of this grace, or muse, taking leave to furl her wings at your nest? I should have thought that Davy would have known."

"Should I tell Mr. Davy what I pay to ThonÉ for keeping my house in order,—or whether I went to church on a Sunday? Laura and I always agreed to live together, but we could not accomplish it until lately,—I mean, since I was in Italy. We met then, as we said we would. I carried her from Paris, where she was alone with every one but those who should have befriended her; her father had died, and she was living with Mademoiselle Margondret,—that person I did not like when I was young. If I had known where Laura was, I should have fetched her away before."

I felt for a moment as if I wished that Laura had never been born, but only for one moment. I then resumed,—

"Does she not dance in London? She looks just ready for it."

"She has accepted no engagement for this season at present. I cannot tell what she may do, however. Would you like to see my garden, Mr. Auchester?"

"Indeed, I should very particularly like to see it, above all, if you will condescend to accompany me. There is a great deal more that I cannot help wishing for, Miss Benette; but I scarcely like to dream of asking about it to-night."

"For me to sing? Oh! I will sing for you any time, but I would certainly rather talk to you,—at least until the beautiful day begins to go; and it is all bright yet."

She walked before me without her bonnet down the winding garden-steps; the trellised balustrade was lost in rose-wreaths. We were soon in the rustling air, among the flowers that had not a withered petal, bursting hour by hour.

"It would tease you to carry flowers, Mr. Auchester, or I should be tempted to gather a nosegay for you to take back to London. I cannot leave them alone while they are so fresh, and they quite ask to be gathered. Look at all the buds upon this bush,—you could not count them."

"They are Provence roses. What a quantity you have!"

"ThonÉ chose this cottage for me because of the number of the flowers. I believe she thinks there is some charm in flowers which will prevent my becoming wicked! If you had been so kind as to bring your violin, I would have filled up the case with roses, and then you would not have had to carry them in your hands."

"But may I not have some, although I did not bring my violin? I never think of anything but violets, though, for strewing that sarcophagus."

"Sarcophagus means 'tomb,' does it not? It is a fine idea of resurrection, when you take out the sleeping music and make it live. I know what you mean about violets,—their perfume is like the tones of your instrument, and one can separate it from all other scents in the spring, as those tones from all other tones of the orchestra."

"I have a tender thought for violets,—a very sad one, Miss Benette; but still sweet now that what I remember has happened a long while ago."

"That is the best of sorrow,—all passes off with time but that which is not bitter, though we can hardly call it sweet. I am grieved I talked of violets, to touch upon any sorrow you may have had to bear; still more grieved that you have had a sorrow, for you are very young."

"I seem to feel, Miss Benette, as if you must know exactly what I have gone through since I saw you, and I am forced to remember it is not the case. I am not sorry you spoke about violets, or rather that I did, because some day I must tell you the whole story of my trouble. I know not why the violet should remind me more than does the beautiful white flower upon that rose-bush over there, for I have in my possession both a white rose that has lived five summers, and an everlasting violet which will never allow me to forget."

"I know, from your look, that it is about some one dying: but why is that so sad? We must all die, Mr. Auchester, and cannot stay after we have been called."

"It may be so, and must indeed; but it was hard to understand, and I cannot now read why a creature so formed to teach earth all that is most like heaven, should go before any one had dreamed she could possibly be taken; for she had so much to do. You would not wonder at the regret I must ever feel, if you had also known her."

Clara had led me onwards as I spoke, and we stood before that rose-tree; she broke off a fresh rose quietly, and placed it in my hand.

"I am more and more unhappy. It was not because I was not sorry that I said so. Pray tell me about her."

"She was very young, Miss Benette, only sixteen; and more beautiful than any flower in this garden, or than any star in the sky; for it was a beauty of spirit, of passion, of awful imagination. She was at school with me, and I was taught by her how slightly I had learned all things; she had learned too much, and of what men could not teach her. I never saw such a face,—but that was nothing. I never heard such a voice,—but neither had it any power, compared with her heavenly genius and its sway upon the soul. She had written a symphony,—you know what it is to do that! She wrote it in three months, and during the slight leisure of a most laborious student life. I was alarmed at her progress, yet there was something about it that made it seem natural. She was ill once, but got over the attack; and the time came when this strange girl was to stand in the light of an orchestra and command its interpretation. It was a private performance, but I was among the players. She did not carry it through. In the very midst she fell to the ground, overwhelmed by illness. We thought her dead then, but she lived four days."

"And died, sir? Oh! she did not die?"

"Yes, Miss Benette, she died; but no one then could have wished her to live."

"She suffered so?"

"No, she was only too happy. I did not know what joy could rise to until I beheld her face with the pain all passed, and saw her smile in dying."

"She must have been happy, then. Perhaps she had nothing she loved except Jehovah, and no home but heaven."

"Indeed, she must have been happy, for she left some one behind her who had been to her so dear as to make her promise to become his own."

"I am glad she was so wise, then, as to hide from him that she broke her heart to part with him; for she could not help it: and it was worthy of a young girl who could write a symphony," said Clara, very calmly, but with her eyes closed among the flowers she was holding in her hand. "Sir, what did they do with the symphony? and, if it is not rude, what did the rose and the violet have to do with this sad tale?"

"Oh! I should have told you first, but I wished to get the worst part over; I do not generally tell people. It was the day our prizes were distributed she took her death-blow, and I received from the Chevalier Seraphael, who superintended all our affairs, and who ordered the rewards, a breast-pin, with a violet in amethyst, in memory of certain words he spoke to me in a rather mystical chat we had held one day, in which he let fall, 'the violin is the violet.' And poor Maria received a silver rose, in memory of Saint Cecilia, to whom he had once compared her, and to whom there was a too true resemblance in her fateful life. The rose was placed in her hair by the person I told you she loved best, just as she was about to stand forth before the orchestra; and when she fainted it fell to my feet. I gathered it up, and have kept it ever since. I do not know whether I had any right to do so, but the only person to whom I could have committed it, it was impossible to insult by reminding of her. In fact, he would not permit it; he left Cecilia after she was buried, and never returned."

Clara here raised her eyes, bright and liquid, and yet all-searching; I had not seen them so.

"I feel for him all that my heart can feel. Has he never ceased to suffer? Was she all to him?"

"He will never cease to suffer until he ceases to breathe, and then he will, perhaps, be fit to bear the bliss that was withdrawn from him as too great for any mortal heart; that is his feeling, I believe, for he is still now, and uncomplaining,—ever proud, but only proud about his sorrow. Some day you will, I trust, hear him play, and you will agree with me how that grief must have grown into a soul so passionate."

"You mean, when you say he is proud, he will not be comforted, I suppose? There are persons like that, I know; but I do not understand it."

"I hope you never will, Miss Benette. You must suffer with your whole nature to refuse comfort."

"To any one so suffering I should say, the comfort is that all those who suffer are reserved for joy."

"Not here, though."

"But it will not be less joy because it is saved for by and by. Now that way of talking makes me angry; I believe there is very little faith."

"Very little, I grant. But poor Florimond Anastase does not fail there."

She stopped beside me as we were pacing the lawn.

"Florimond Anastase! you did not say so? Do you mean the great player? I have heard of that person."

Her face flushed vividly, as rose hues flowing into pearl, her aspect altered, she seemed convicted of some mistaken conclusion; but, recovering herself almost instantly, resumed,—

"Thank you for telling me that story,—it will make me better, I hope. I do not deserve to have grown up so well and strong. May I do my duty for it, and at least be grateful! You did not say what was done with the symphony?"

"The person I mentioned would not allow it to be retained. And, indeed, what else could be done? It was buried in her virgin grave,—a maiden work. She sleeps with her music, and I know not who could have divided them."

"You have told me a story that has turned you all over, like the feeling before a thunder-storm. I will not hear a word more. You cannot afford to talk of what affects you. Now, let me be very impertinent and change the key."

"By all means; I have said quite enough, and will thank you."

"There is Laura in the arbor, just across the grass; we will go to her, if you please, and you shall see her pretty pink frock among the roses, instead of my black gown. On the way I will tell you that there is some one, a lady too, so much interested in you that she was going down to your neighborhood on purpose to find out about you; but I prevented her from coming, by saying you would be here, and she answered,—

"'Tell him, then, to come and call upon me.'"

"It can only have been one living lady who would have sent that message,—Miss Lawrence. Actually I had forgotten all about her, and she returns upon me with a strong sense of my own ingratitude. I will certainly call upon her, and I shall be only too glad to identify my benefactress."

"That you cannot do; she will not allow it,—at least, to this hour she persists in perfect innocence of the fact."

"That she provided us both with exactly what we wanted at exactly the right time? She chalked out my career, at least. I'll make her understand how I feel. Is she not a character?"

"Not more so than yourself, but still one, certainly; and a peculiarity of hers is, that generous—too generous almost—as she is, she will not suffer the slightest allusion to her generosities to be made, nor hint to be circulated that she has a heart at all."

Laura was sitting in the arbor, which was now at hand, but not, as Clara prophesied, among the roses in any sense, for the green branches that festooned the lattice were flowerless until the later summer, and her face appeared fading into a mist of green. The delicate leaves framed her as a picture of melancholy that has attired itself in mirth, which mirth but served to fling out the shadow by contrast and betray the source. Clara sat on one side, I on the other, and presently we went in to tea. But I did not hear the voice I longed for that evening, nor was the pianoforte opened that I so well remembered standing in its "dark corner."