is twelve times as long since my father was with me. And you could hardly have worshipped the one more than I worship the memory of the other."
Yet, as if this at least were a sympathy between them, his manner became for the moment tenderer, and he forgot himself in order to arouse her. For Éloise was already full of reproach at having made one at so gay a reunion,—not remembering that all the rest had seriously vowed they would stay at home, unless she joined them, and that the wedding had been also that of a dear friend. So Mr. St. George was no longer lofty; he told her strange legends of the region that somehow she had never heard, repeated tiny droplets of song that would have lost their volatile essence in any alembic of translation, pointed out to her all the signs of the night, for the nonce forgot politics, and gathered spray after spray of the gorgeous creepers from the way-side, whose names and natures he knew.
"How is it," she asked, "that you, whose mind is certainly filled with things of an apparently vaster scale,—with legislation and war and finance,—can care for these bubbles, these songs and flowers?"
"Do you know Homer, Miss Éloise,—Chapman's Homer? Although I'm not sure but that the old English poet breathes a bloom upon the Greek. Well, I do not forget, that, when the envoys went to appease the enraged Æacides, that thunderer in arms,—
"The quarter of the Myrmidons they reached, and found him set
Delighted with his solemn harp, which curiously was fret
With works conceited through the verge; the bawdrick that embraced
His lofty neck was silver twist; this, when his hand laid waste
Aëtion's city, he did choose as his especial prize,
And, loving sacred music well, made it his exercise."
"That is superb! You must find me the place to-morrow. But Achilles playing on the harp? I am afraid he will suffer in Will Murray's estimation."
"Hush! don't breathe it! Will doesn't know it yet,—perhaps may never find it out. Do you know, Miss Éloise, as you go flitting along in that misty dress, with the little scarf dropping from your hair, that you are like the very soul of a white cloud fallen from above and trailing along beside me?"
"I? with my dark skin?" said Éloise, before she thought.
"Yes, you, Egypt! White, because there combine all colors that are; and in you—pardon me—there is a universal wealth of tint, be it carnation, sea-green, black, or cream, so harmonized that one looks a hundred times before finding it all. You recollect how a great painter produces his effect of white,—of white sunlight on a stem? He lays the solar spectrum there, the seven colors of light,—and their union in the beholder's eye makes the dash of sunshine, the white lustre. Do you know, in fact, what you remind me of?"
"No,—how should I?—Hark! what was that?"
It was the pealing of a bell, the far and faint pulsation of that bell she had once before heard, as it rang out the changes of the sea, now above and now below the flashing, falling foam-crests.
"It is the tide-bell," said Mr. St. George, stiffly; and, with the word, the previous midnight rose as if by incantation, and she kept her eyes on the ground. Yet, as they walked, it seemed to Éloise that her quickened senses detected a hidden rustle and murmur, as if the distant morasses, the neighboring thickets, were alive. She seemed to be aware of soft and stealthy soundless foot-falls; shadowy forms, she would have said, were gliding around them in the night. Cold terror made her heart stand still. Suddenly all these fears condensed into shape,—two flaming eyeballs glared in the copse,—a shock, a flash, a smell of powder, just as she had seized Mr. St. George's arm and snatched him back. Then the boughs crashed, and the dark shade went leaping away. Terror died in Éloise's heart. Intrepid rage possessed her. She sprang forward, still holding him back with the
