it full of sleeping water and the shadows of the marshaling cypresses;
her wide dark garden of roses and of pomegranates, and at the end the
Vision, marvellous, aerial, the soul of something--is it beauty? is it
sorrow?--that great white pride of love in mourning such as only here
in all the round of our little world lifts itself to the stars, the
unpaintable, indescribable Taj Mahal. A gentle breath stole out with a
scent of jessamine and such a memory! I closed my eyes and felt the warm
luxury of a tear.

Thinking of the two in the garden, my mood was very kind, very
conniving. How foolish after all were my cherry-stone theories of taste
and temperament before that uncalculating thing which sways a world and
builds a Taj Mahal! Was it probable that Arjamand and her Emperor had
loved fastidiously, and yet how they had loved! I wandered away into
consideration of the blind forces which move the world, in which comely
young persons like my daughter Cecily had such a place; I speculated
vaguely upon the value of the subtler gifts of sympathy and insight
which seemed indeed, at that enveloping moment, to be mere flowers
strewn upon the tide of deeper emotions. The garden sent me a fragrance
of roses; the moon sailed higher and picked out the little kiosks set
along the wall. It was a charming, charming thing to wait, there at the
portal of the silvered, scented garden, for an idyll to come forth.

When they reappeared, Dacres and my daughter, they came with casual
steps and cheerful voices. They might have been a couple of tourists.
The moonlight fell full upon them on the platform under the arch.
It showed Dacres measuring with his stick the length of the Sanskrit
letters which declared the stately texts, and Cecily's expression of
polite, perfunctory interest. They looked up at the height above them;
they looked back at the vision behind. Then they sauntered towards
the carriage, he offering a formal hand to help her down the uncertain
steps, she gracefully accepting it.

'You--you have not been long,' said I. 'I hope you didn't hurry on my
account.'

'Miss Farnham found the marble a little cold under foot,' replied
Dacres, putting Miss Farnham in.

'You see,' explained Cecily, 'I stupidly forgot to change into thicker
soles. I have only my slippers. But, mamma, how lovely it is! Do let us
come again in the daytime. I am dying to make a sketch of it.'

Mr. Tottenham was to leave us on the following day. In the mor