arble basin of the fountain,
standing out from the deep background, gleams snow-white beneath Diana's
touch. "The moon's an arrant thief." Perchance she snatches from great
Sol some beauties even rarer than that "pale fire" he grants her--it may
be, against his will. So it may well be thought, for what fairest day
can be compared with a moonlit night in languorous July?

The water of the fountain, bubbling ever upwards, makes sweet music on
the silent air; but, even as they hark to it, a clearer, sweeter music
makes the night doubly melodious. From bough to bough it comes and
goes,--a heavenly harmony, not to be reproduced by anything of earthly
mould.

"O nightingale, that on yon gloomy spray
Warbles at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill."

Clear from the depths of the pine woods beyond, the notes ascend,
softly, tenderly. Not often do they enrich our Irish air, but sometimes
they come to gladden us with a music that can hardly be termed of earth.
The notes rise and swell and die, only to rise and to slowly fade again,
like "linked sweetness long drawn out."

Seating themselves on the edge of the fountain, they acknowledge
silently the beauty of the hour. Olga's hand, moving through the water,
breaks it into little wavelets on which the riotous moonbeams dance.

"Where are your bangles, Olga? you used to be famous for them?" asks
Desmond, idly.

"I have tired of them."

"Poor bangles!" says Ulic Ronayne, in a low tone heard only by her.

"What a heavy sigh!"

"A selfish one, too. More for myself than for the discarded bangles. Yet
their grievance is mine."

"I thought they suited you," says Desmond.

"Did you? Well, but they had grown so common; every one used to go about
laden with them. And then they made such a tiresome tinkle-tinkle all
over the place."

"What place?" says Lord Rossmoyne, who objects to slang of even the
mildest description from any woman's lips, most of all from the lips of
her whom he hopes to call his wife.

"Don't be stupid!" says this prospective wife, with considerable
petulance.

"You are fickle, I doubt," goes on Rossmoyne, unmoved. "A few months ago
you raved about your bangles, and had the prettiest assortment I think I
ever saw. Thirty-six on each arm, or something like it. We used to call
them your armor. You said you were obliged to wear the same amount
exactly on each arm, lest you might grow crooked."