she added. So saying, she waved
him away with a little air of tyranny; and he perched himself boyishly
on the big chair in the corner, and with idle impatience began playing
with the flax on the spinning-wheel near by. Then he took to humming
a ditty the Jersey housewife used to sing as she spun, while Guida
disposed of the sweet-smelling fruit. Suddenly she stopped and stamped
her foot.

"No, no, that's not right, stupid sailor-man," she said, and she sang a
verse at him over the last details of her work:

"Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
The moon wheels full, and the tide flows high,
And your wedding-gown you must put it on
Ere the night hath no moon in the sky--
Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"

She paused. He was entranced. He had never heard her sing, and the full,
beautiful notes of her contralto voice thrilled him like organ music.
His look devoured her, her song captured him.

"Please go on," he said, "I never heard it that way." She was
embarrassed yet delighted by his praise, and she threw into the next
verse a deep weirdness:

"Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
Your gown shall be stitched ere the old moon fade:
The age of a moon shall your hands spin on,
Or a wife in her shroud shall be laid--
Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"

"Yes, yes, that's it!" he exclaimed with gay ardour. "That's it. Sing
on. There are two more verses."

"I'll only sing one," she answered, with a little air of wilfulness.

"Spin, spin, belle Mergaton!
The Little Good Folk the spell they have cast;
By your work well done while the moon hath shone,
Ye shall cleave unto joy at last--
Gigoton Mergaton, spin!"

As she sang the last verse she seemed in a dream, and her rich voice,
rising with the spirit of the concluding lines, poured out the notes
like a bird drunk with the air of spring.

"Guida," he cried, springing to his feet, "when you sing like that it
seems to me I live in a world that has nothing to do with the sordid
business of life, with my dull trade--with getting the weather-gauge or
sailing in triple line. You're a planet all by yourself, Mistress Guida!
Are you ready to come into the garden?"

"Yes, yes, in a minute," she answered. "You go out to the big
apple-tree, and I'll come in a minute." The apple-tree was in the
farthest corner of the large garden. Near it was the summer-house where
Guida and