hear more of your poet," she said, gently, when Calvert
had finished speaking. "I do not remember to have heard Monsieur Chenier
speak of him or the Abbe Delille, either. The Abbe is often good enough
to read poetry to us in my aunt's drawing-room, but 'tis usually his
own," and she laughed mischievously. "The poor gentleman makes a great
fuss about it, too. He must have his dish of tea at his elbow and the
shades all drawn, with only the firelight or a single candle to read by,
and when we are all quaking with fear at the darkness and solemn
silence, he begins to recite, and imagines that 'tis his verses which
have so moved us!" and she laughed merrily again. "You shall come and
read to us from your young Scotch poet and snatch the Abbe's laurels
from him! Indeed, my aunt has already conceived a great liking for you,
Monsieur, so she told me last night on her way from Madame Necker's, and
intends to urge upon Mr. Jefferson to bring you to see her immediately."
She smiled at Calvert so graciously and with such unaffected good-humor
that he looked at her with delight and wonder at the change come over
her. Once more the mask was down. All the haughtiness and capricious
anger had faded away, and Calvert thought he had never beheld a creature
so charming and so beautiful. Her dark eyes shone like stars in a wintry
sky, and, though the air was frosty, the roses bloomed in her cheeks. As
he looked at her there was a troubled smile on his lips and he felt a
sudden quickening of his pulse. A curious sense of remoteness from her
impressed itself upon him. He looked around at the unfamiliar scene, at
the towering palace walls on his right, at the crowds of spectators on
the river's edge, at the brilliant throng of skaters, at the great stone
bridge spanning the frozen river over which people were forever passing
to and fro, some hurriedly, some with leisure to lean over the parapet
for a moment to watch the unaccustomed revelry below. And as he looked,
another scene, which he had so lately left, rose before him. In fancy he
could see the broad and shining Potomac, on its banks the stately old
colonial house with its colonnaded wings, something after the fashion of
General Washington's mansion at near-by Mount Vernon, the green lawns
stretching away from the portico and the fragrant depths of the woods
beyond. A voice recalled him from his abstraction. It was that of
Monsieur de St. Aulaire, who, as they neared the crowded terrace o