-yet so much more than ordinary love--a pure passion of the soul,
in which there was much of worship and nothing of desire. Surely the
most pure and holy passion the world has ever known, for in it there was
absolutely nothing of self. Like Dante after his first meeting with
Beatrice, this Virginia boy-poet had entered upon a _Vita Nuova_--a new
life--made all of beauty.

What difference did the taunts of schoolmates, the hardness of a
foster-father make now? The wounds they made had been gratefully healed
by the balm of her beauteous words about his mother. Those old wounds
were as nothing--neither they nor anything else had power to harm him
now. In the new life that had opened so suddenly before him he would
bear a charmed existence.

He went to his room before the usual hour that night, for he wanted to
be alone with his dreams--with his newest, most beautiful dream. To his
room, but not to bed. Life was too beautiful to be wasted in sleep. He
lighted his lamp and holding his mother's picture within its circle of
light, gazed long and devotedly upon it. Did she know of the great light
that had shone out of what seemed a sunless sky upon her boy? Had she,
looking out from high Heaven, seen the gracious greeting of the
beautiful being who was Madonna and Psyche in one? Had she heard her own
cause so sweetly championed, her own name so sweetly cleared of
opprobrium?

He threw himself upon his lounge and lay with his hands clasped under
his curly head, still dreaming--dreaming--dreaming--until day-dreams
were merged into real dreams, for he was fast asleep.

In his sleep he saw the lady of his dreams in a situation of peril, from
which he joyfully rescued her. He awoke with a start. His lamp had
burned itself out but a late moon flooded the room with the white light
that he loved. A breeze laden with odors caught from the many
rose-gardens and the heavier-scented magnolias, now in full bloom, it
had come across, stirred the curtain. His nostrils, always sensitive to
the odors of flowers, drank it in rapturously. So honey-sweet it was,
his senses swam.

He arose and looked out upon the incense-breathing blossoms, like
phantoms, under the moon. A clock in a distant part of the house was
striking twelve. How much more beautiful was the world now--at night's
high noon--than at the same hour of the day.

All the house, save himself, was asleep. How easy it would be to escape
into this lovely night--to walk through thi