; the elder seemed
as clear as crystal!

He had entered the town, where the arcaded streets exuded their peculiar
pungent smell of cows and leather, wood-smoke, wine-casks, and drains.
The sound of rapid wheels over the stones made him turn his head. A
carriage drawn by red-roan horses was passing at a great pace. People
stared at it, standing still, and looking alarmed. It swung from side to
side and vanished round a corner. Harz saw Mr. Nicholas Treffry in a
long, whitish dust-coat; his Italian servant, perched behind, was holding
to the seat-rail, with a nervous grin on his dark face.

'Certainly,' Harz thought, 'there's no getting away from these people
this morning--they are everywhere.'

In his studio he began to sort his sketches, wash his brushes, and drag
out things he had accumulated during his two months' stay. He even began
to fold his blanket door. But suddenly he stopped. Those two girls! Why
not try? What a picture! The two heads, the sky, and leaves! Begin
to-morrow! Against that window--no, better at the Villa! Call the
picture--Spring...!

IV

The wind, stirring among trees and bushes, flung the young leaves
skywards. The trembling of their silver linings was like the joyful
flutter of a heart at good news. It was one of those Spring mornings
when everything seems full of a sweet restlessness--soft clouds chasing
fast across the sky; soft scents floating forth and dying; the notes of
birds, now shrill and sweet, now hushed in silences; all nature striving
for something, nothing at peace.

Villa Rubein withstood the influence of the day, and wore its usual look
of rest and isolation. Harz sent in his card, and asked to see "der
Herr." The servant, a grey-eyed, clever-looking Swiss with no hair on
his face, came back saying:

"Der Herr, mein Herr, is in the Garden gone." Harz followed him.

Herr Paul, a small white flannel cap on his head, gloves on his hands,
and glasses on his nose, was watering a rosebush, and humming the
serenade from Faust.

This aspect of the house was very different from the other. The sun fell
on it, and over a veranda creepers clung and scrambled in long scrolls.
There was a lawn, with freshly mown grass; flower-beds were laid out, and
at the end of an avenue of young acacias stood an arbour covered with
wisteria.

In the east, mountain peaks--fingers of snow--glittered above the mist.
A grave simplicity lay on that scene, on the roofs and s