Volume I Part 19 (1/2)
I am almost tempted, after all, to say that it is best not to tas,--best to keep silence; but let me beware,--it is while we ues Let _theh, with the inward fire, or we have no right to speak
CHAPTER XXI
Oh, shahappened to , like the souls of flowers, to the sun, became actually to me as the sun unto those flowery souls I revived and recovered h tears I don't kno rew rather nervous, I knew, fro And I did not say that while Miss Lawrence had stood and chatted with Santonio, a noiseless _rentree_ of foot salvers loaded with ices and what are called ”crea parties
A sort of interlude this foruests availed themselves to come and stare in upon us; and as they looked in we peeped out, though nobody ventured on our side beyond the doorway So our duet had happened afterwards, and the music was to be resumed until twelve o'clock, the supper-hour And after our duet there was performed this coda, that Miss Redfern requested Miss Lawrence to play with her, and that Miss Lawrence refused, but consented, at Santonio's suggestion, to play alone As soon as she was seen past our folding-door, the whole male squadron advanced to escort her to the piano; but as she was reloves leisurely, she waved them off, and they became of no account whatever in an instant She sat down very still and played a brilliant prelude, a ue, short and sharp, then a popular air, with variations, few, but finely fingered; and at last, after a fewaltogether new, so fresh andnotes It was a h of unblended and unfaltering le flower; and only the perfumes of Nature exhale a bliss as sweet, how far more unexpressed! This short rew, as it were, by fragradual, into another,--a _prestissi upon crested ripples; or for a better si sprays in a suularly broken tily sweet I say not--the first subject in refrain flowed through the second, and they interwoven even as creepers and flowers densely tangled, closed together simultaneously The perfect command Miss Lawrence possessed over the instrument did not in the least occur to me; I was possessed but by one idea Yet too nervous to venture into that large rooerly watched her, and endeavored to arrest her eye, that I ain; so resolute was I to ask her the name of the author Santonio, as if really excited, hadher, but I heard not what they said, though Davy did, for he had followed Santonio To my surprise, I saw that Miss Benette had taken herself into a corner, and when I gazed upon her she iping her eyes I was re over
Scarcely was I fit to look up again, having retreated to another corner, when I beheld Miss Lawrence, in her blue brocade, come in and look about her She absolutely advanced to me
”Did you like that little dreaentleman at the festival, do you know”
”Did you compose it?” I asked in a maze
”No, I believe he did”
”Then you knoho he is? Tell me, oh! tell me the name”
She smiled then at me with kindness,--a beneficent sweetness ”Come, sit down, and I will sit by you and tell you the story”
”May not Miss Benette come too?”
”Oh, certainly, if she is not h, for I want to see her eyes” I slipped over the carpet ”Co” She looked a little more serious with surprise, but followed me across the room and took the next chair beyond mine Santonio came up too, but Miss Lawrence said, ”Go,--you have heard it before;” and he, having to play again next, retired with careful dignity
”You must know that once on a tian Miss Lawrence, as if she were reading the introductory chapter of a new novel, ”I wanted soet either in London, where I live, and I detere in a lone part of Scotland,--mountainous Scotland; but no one ith rand pianoforte which I hired in Edinburgh, and carried on with lorious weather just then, and when I arrived at h very charreat deal,--often all the day until the evening, when I invariably ascended my nearest hill, and inhaled the purest air in the whole world My maid went alith me; and at such seasons I left my pianoforte sometimes shut, and sometimes open, as it happened, in my parlor, which had a splendid prospect, and very s opening to the garden in front I allowed these s to remain open alhen I went out, and I have often found Beethoven's sonatas strewed over the lahen the wind blew freshly, as very frequently it did You ed my strolls until the sun had set and the moon arisen So one time it happened, I had been at work the whole day upon a crabbed copy of studies by Bach and Handel that led for me from an old bureau in a Parisian warehouse,--for you must know such studies are rarely to be found”
”Why not?” asked I, rather abruptly, just as if it had been Millicent as speaking
”Oh! just because they are rare practice, I suppose But listen, or our tale will be cut off short, as I see Santonio is about to play”
”Oh, make haste then, pray!”
And she resumed in a veinI went out The sunshi+ne had broken from dark, moist clouds all over those hills The first steep I cliold of the clusters, intermixed with the heather, just there a perfect surface, pleased athered more than I could well hold in bothout,--that is, my handmaid,--and I returned past her to leave my flowers at hos upon the little lawn, but second thoughts deter I got intothe with rain-drops, upon the music-stand of the pianoforte I cannot tell you why I did it, but so it was; and I had a fancy that they would be choice companions for those quaint studies which yet lay open upon the desk
”In that lone place, such was its beauty and its virtue, we never feared to leave the s open or the doors all night unlocked; and I think it very possible Iafter me, for Victorine always latched it, as she came last
”At all events, I found her on the top of the honeysuckle height, carrying a ca very tired The carass, wrapped in a veritable tartan
And this night I reposed a good deal tosunset sketch
Then I stayed to find fault with old nor bloom upon it; then to watch the shadows creep up the hill, and then the hts in the valley, till it was just nine o'clock Slowly strolling home, Ino faster round flit by entleman in a cloak,' said Victorine But I had seen no person, only, as I have said, a shadow, and took no note