.

It was one of those lovely noons towards the end of May in which a rural
suburb has the mellow charm of summer to him who escapes awhile from the
streets of a crowded capital. The Londoner knows its charm when he feels
his tread on the softening swards of the Vale of Health, or, pausing at
Richmond under the budding willow, gazes on the river glittering in the
warmer sunlight, and hears from the villa-gardens behind him the brief
trill of the blackbird. But the suburbs round Paris are, I think, a yet
more pleasing relief from the metropolis; they are more easily reached,
and I know not why, but they seem more rural,--perhaps because the
contrast of their repose with the stir left behind, of their redundance
of leaf and blossom compared with the prim efflorescence of trees in the
Boulevards and Tuileries, is more striking. However that may be, when
Graham reached the pretty suburb in which Isaura dwelt, it seemed to him
as if all the wheels of the loud busy life were suddenly smitten still.
The hour was yet early; he felt sure that he should find Isaura at
home. The garden-gate stood unfastened and ajar; he pushed it aside and
entered. I think I have before said that the garden of the villa was
shut out from the road and the gaze of neighbours by a wall and thick
belts of evergreens; it stretched behind the house somewhat far for the
garden of a suburban villa. He paused when he had passed the gateway,
for he heard in the distance the voice of one singing,--singing low,
singing plaintively. He knew it was the voice of Isaura-he passed on,
leaving the house behind him, and tracking the voice till he reached the
singer.

Isaura was seated within an arbour towards the farther end of the
garden,--an arbour which, a little later in the year, must indeed be
delicate and dainty with lush exuberance of jessamine and woodbine; now
into its iron trelliswork leaflets and flowers were insinuating their
gentle way. Just at the entrance one white rose--a winter rose that had
mysteriously survived its relations--opened its pale hues frankly to the
noonday sun. Graham approached slowly, noiselessly, and the last note of
the song had ceased when he stood at the entrance of the arbour. Isaura
did not perceive him at first, for her face was bent downward musingly,
as was often her wont after singing, especially when alone; but she felt
that the place was darkened, that something stood between her and the
sunshine. She raised her face,