Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/164

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"'Life,' said Auden Spoon-bill, 'is pretty fine, no matter how it is arranged.'

"'But life is a very strange thing,' said Delilah. 'I can't begin to tell you how strange I have found it. For one thing, I may have what is not my heart's desire, and what is my heart's desire I may not have.'

"'It is strange,' admitted Auden Spoon-bill. 'But why have any heart's desires aside from what is already yours in this fine, fair world?'

"'One can not rule one's heart,' cried Delilah. 'One's heart goes on before one's mind can stop to think. One's heart rushes in before everything. One's heart plays with brilliant-colored things when all else is dead-color. One's heart loves——'

"But Delilah never finished. Before their eyes rose up a magnificent wall—a wall of water that was fire and cloud and silver, and in it were ineffable rainbows