r. When they were captured by the unsympathetic Abe and restored to
their excited ladies, they flew at and smacked them soundly, then tossed
back their red combs and crowed with all their might: a paean to the ever
conquering male.

There were other flowers besides Castilian roses in Isabel's garden,
haphazardly set out and cared for, but the more riotous and luxuriant
for that. And all around her, save on the Leghorns' hills, was the gay
delicate tapestry of the wild flowers. The marsh glittered like bronze
in the sunlight. In the late afternoon it was as violet as the hills. In
the evening afterglows it swam in as many colors as the Roman Campagna.
At this hour the sky was often as pink as the almond orchards, melting
above into a blue light but intense; while everything in its glow, the
tall trees on the distant mountains, and the picturesque irregularities
of the marsh-lands, seemed to lift up their heads and drink in the
beauty until Isabel expected to see them reel.

And the pagan intoxication of spring took as complete a possession of
her. She sat under the long drooping yellow sprays of her acacia-tree,
her lap full of the pink Castilian roses, and dreamed. No one could help
being in love in the spring, she concluded, given a concrete
inspiration; and far be it from any creature so close to nature as
herself to attempt to stem that insidious musical scented tide. It was
possible that Gwynne would not return, or returning, would flout her;
she hardly cared. In fact so steeped was she in the pleasures of merely
loving, in a sweet if somewhat halcyon passion, that she had no wish
that the mood should be dispelled; and felt that she could ask nothing
more than to spend the rest of her mortal life with a beautiful
memory--like the aunt whose dust lay over the mountain in the convent
yard. She knew that if Gwynne returned and demanded her, she should be
tempted to marry him--she never went so far as to promise either him or
herself the rounded chapter; but one of the strongest instincts of her
nature was to squeeze the passing moment dry, jealously drink every drop
of its juice. She had no intention of tormenting herself with
problematical futures. Futures took care of themselves, anyhow.

She was subconciously aware that she could conceive and portray a more
extreme phase of emotion than this present evolution, but she
deliberately avoided the phantasm. She was utterly, ideally, absurdly
happy. Not for a moment did