her maid, as she had come, under the brown
umbrella. The next day we had the dinner. Simpson was astonished--and
more than astonished, grieved--when I told him that he was to dine with
the maid; but he could not complain in words, since my own guest, the
mistress, was hardly more attractive. When our preparations were
complete I could not help laughing: the two prim little tables, one in
the parlor and one in the anteroom, and Simpson disapprovingly going
back and forth between them, were irresistible.

I greeted my guest hilariously when she arrived, and, fortunately, her
manner was not quite so depressed as usual: I could never have accorded
myself with a tearful mood. I had thought that perhaps she would make,
for the occasion, some change in her attire; I have never known a woman
who had not some scrap of finery, however small, in reserve for that
unexpected occasion of which she is ever dreaming. But no: Miss Grief
wore the same black gown, unadorned and unaltered. I was glad that
there was no rain that day, so that the skirt did not at least look so
damp and rheumatic.

She ate quietly, almost furtively, yet with a good appetite, and she
did not refuse the wine. Then, when the meal was over and Simpson had
removed the dishes, I asked for the new manuscripts. She gave me an old
green copybook filled with short poems, and a prose sketch by itself; I
lit a cigar and sat down at my desk to look them over.

"Perhaps you will try a cigarette?" I suggested, more for amusement
than anything else, for there was not a shade of Bohemianism about her;
her whole appearance was puritanical.

"I have not yet succeeded in learning to smoke."

"You have tried?" I said, turning round.

"Yes: Serena and I tried, but we did not succeed."

"Serena is your maid?"

"She lives with me."

I was seized with inward laughter, and began hastily to look over her
manuscripts with my back toward her, so that she might not see it. A
vision had risen before me of those two forlorn women, alone in their
room with locked doors, patiently trying to acquire the smoker's art.

But my attention was soon absorbed by the papers before me. Such a
fantastic collection of words, lines, and epithets I had never before
seen, or even in dreams imagined. In truth, they were like the work of
dreams: they were _Kubla Khan_, only more so. Here and there was
radiance like the flash of a diamond, but each poem, almost each verse
and line, was marred by so