y heavenly flight is all so poetic and strange a mere
mortal like myself cannot interpret the feeling. It surely cannot be
that all men who love are so entranced. It must be that within the
circle of your enchanting power a superior charm prevails:

"'There be none of Beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters,
Is thy sweet voice to me;
When, as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming.

"'The moon is your partner in this mysterious midnight revel,
Margaret:

"'And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep;
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee,
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.'

"'How wise, after all, your advice to be hopeful! The sweetest
moments of our lives are passing now while we are wrapped in our
devotion to each other. All sounds are sweet--

"''Tis sweet to hear
At midnight on the blue moonlit deep,
The song and oar of Adria's gondolier,
By distance mellowed o'er the water's sweep.
'Tis sweet to see the evening star appear;
'Tis sweet to listen to the night winds creep
From leaf to leaf; 'tis sweet to view on high
The rainbow, based on ocean, span the sky.'"

Gabrielle now took up Hygeia's letter again. The rainbow of hope based
on ocean seemed to Jim to be disappearing beneath its watery foundation.
If Obreeon had appeared and offered to remove those letters at that
point, he might have doubled the price, and Jim would have paid it
gladly.

But the reader did not stop.

"'Of course, I am interested,'" read Nellie, "'in your daily doings
in the country, so do not chide me for not asking more questions. I
should like to know the number of cows your Uncle Reuben keeps, and
if the cheese factory is running on full time. These items savor of
rural thrift, and as the farmer is the backbone of the country, I
would not eliminate him--scratch him as it were--from our worldly
calculations. The cows, the cheese factory and Uncle Reuben, however,
stand in the dim background fading into the hazy purple of the
tree-lined brook, as I think of you, my May Queen, laughing, in the
center of the picture. When I