had in abundance, but they were commonplace. He shone indeed; but rather with the borrowed light of letters than the luminous atmosphere of imagination. He could not comprehend me, though he would never appear puzzled. He would miss a delicate implication. In taste he was a sensualist, esteeming the full-blooded, florid, and passionate conceptions of art above her chaste aeriel hints and tender moonlit beauties. Yet he was a good and sound scholar. His knowledge of Greek and Latin was singularly exact. He was deeply read in modern literature; and his surprising memory enabled him to display to the utmost advantage the various and carefully stored treasures of his mind. But though his erudition might have enabled him to have edited with accuracy the most obscure work in the whole range of ancient literature, his imagination would not have yielded him five lines of poetry.

When together in the library he would often extort a smile from me by the recollection he excited of my schooldays. Brisk in his movements, energetic in his actions, pungent and austere in his resolute directions, he recalled to me a French tutor, whom, of all my early tutors, I most hated for his severity. But the task conned, the subject discussed, the book closed, his manner would change; he would be ceremoniously courteous, with almost a hint of obsequiousness in his behaviour, as though he wished me to understand that his sturdy discharge of his duty did not prevent him from appreciating the difference of position between us.

I should have benefited more from his counsels had my thoughts been less preoccupied with the subject which was hardly ever absent from my mind.

But I found it impossible wholly to surrender my attention to my tasks. Memory persistently reverted to the strange and beautiful apparition that had startled me in my midnight saunter. Every day, nay, every hour, was increasing my desire to know her. Yet I could hit upon no means of introduction. To have hung about her house, to have loitered near her garden, even had the absence of my companion rendered such a device practicable, would have been unwise; since, if now from no apparent cause she shunned intrusion or inspection, greater would be her efforts to maintain her privacy when she discovered a stranger sought to violate it.

One thing I could not hide from myself-I was in love with her. I am well aware that under the circumstances the feeling was most absurd; but I could not help it. The memory of her beauty took shape before me at all hours, in all moods. And my love was illustrated and confirmed by my wish to meet, to know, to speak with her.

Martelli noticed my abstraction. More than once I had remarked his dusky eyes glowing on me with a gaze of interrogative inspection.

But he carefully repressed his curiosity. No observation ever escaped him to hint his perception of inattentive moods.

Once, meeting his eyes, it occurred to me to take him into my confidence.

"The Italians," I mused, " are famous for their handling of lovematters. They at least bear the reputation of being subtle and secret in such adventures. They wind into the most tortuous intrigues like a snake through the intricacies of a forest. Why not tell him my story? A young man in love with a woman whom he has seen but once, is an object neither remarkable nor unique. He might aid me by procuring an introduction, at all events; and if he can do this, he has my full consent to think what he likes of the business."

It was evening. We were seated at a table in the library, near the window, which was wide open to admit the still and sultry air. There was no moon; but the stars, large, full and liquid, lent a pale radiance to the gloom. I rose, took a cigar from the mantlepiece and lighted it.

"Let us close these books for to-night," I said. "The air is oppressive; and those sweet stars seem to chide us for preferring the inspiration of other things to theirs."

He smiled, drew a meerschaum from his pocket, and began to smoke. I pushed the table aside that I might seat myself more fully in the window.

"There is a line in one of Keats's poems—' Hyperion,'” I said. "I know it," he interrupted. "A noble poem."

"Noble, indeed. There is a line in that poem which I do not think I ever thoroughly understood until now. I refer to the line in which he speaks of

tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars.'

Look at those round, moony orbs, tremulous like tears wept by the gods; the trees yonder seem spell-bound beneath them."

"Truly," he answered.

"Surely theirs is a magical repose: a deeper calm than that of sleep. Oh, I can forgive much to the superstition of astrology. Those planets deserve to be influences if they are not. The malignant heart would of course make their shine sinister; but a generous nature must deem those clear rays benignant. I do. But it is the common effect of Beauty on me. I warm, I dilate in her presence. She is a glorious spirit."

"Ay, to a man of taste."

"Beauty of course is a spirit interpenetrating all that delights and elevates. But she is incarnate too, sometimes; falling, I suppose, from the heavens like that meteor there," I said, pointing to an exhalation that rushed with yellow tresses streaming through the dark; "and taking the shape of woman when she touches the earth."

"But is not innocence a condition of beauty?" he inquired, turning his dusky gaze upon me.

"It should be."

"Then do not make your spirit take the shape of woman."

I laughed. "What shape would you have her?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I hardly know," he answered: "unless you make her a new-born babe."

"I fear you have the scholar's contempt for the tendre passion," said I. "But listen now to a strange story. Do you see those trees yonder ?"

"Yes, sir."

"One night—it was clear with moonlight-I strolled out to breathe the air. My excursion extended to those fields you can see from your bedroom window. There I lingered. The village clock struck two. Hardly had the silvery notes died, when"

I paused.

"You returned home, sir ?"

"No. But looking, I perceived the Spirit of Beauty walking beneath the starlight, draped in white, with eyes deep and beautiful, in which the moon hid itself for love, with a face of marble, passionless as the feature of the mother of Paphus ere the sculptor's adoration made her rosy with life."

He showed his gleaming teeth in a smile of which he thought the gloom would hide the contempt.

"Sir," he said, "you are talking the language of the romancist." "I am talking the language of truth."

"At two o'clock in the morning," he exclaimed, blowing a white cloud on the air, "the female shapes one meets abroad are seldom spiritual. How they may look in the country, and by starlight, I do not know; but by gaslight their cadaverous complexion is commonly cloaked with paint; and if their eyes are bright, it is rather with a spirituous than a spiritual ray."

"Ah, Martelli, you are a cynic-by which I mean, a practical, astute man, who makes the root and not the flower of fact or fancy his business. A commendable quality! All the same, I would not part with my love of illusion. This essential difference of character will make us get on well together; though, to be plain, before I knew you, my opinion was that if I hoped to please or be pleased, my comrade must be a man of sympathies identical with my own."

"A common and generous error," he replied; "but time corrects those crudities."

"As a proof, I like you none the worse for the misanthropic pleasure you take in extinguishing the candle in the magic-lantern of fancy at the moment when the panoramic reflections most delight

me. But respecting this apparition-here is no illusion; for I have found out who she is."

He smoked in silence.

"Her name is Mrs. Fraser. She is a widow. She lives in that house yonder, where the light shines through the trees. I have only seen her once, and the circumstances of that meeting may have served to exaggerate my impression of her. But the recollection I carried away with me is that of a woman of a beauty whose mysteriousness defies description.

"If you desire to be disenchanted, Mr. Thorburn, you should get to know her."

"I should be happy to risk my idealism; but how am I to procure an introduction? Her house is a cloister-she a nun, secret and exclusive as the austerest of the flannelled sisterhood."

Were we in Italy, I should advise you to serenade her. There love is studied as a fine art. It is different here. Yet were I in your straits-for, Mr. Thorburn, are you not in love with this beautiful phantom of yours?"

"I confess it."

"If I were in your straits, I say, I should do something hardy; go to her home, procure admittance at any sacrifice of politeness, and leave the rest to chance."

"That would be practicable to a man with a temperate pulse and trained nerves," I replied; "but I believe I could much more easily jump off the cliff than place myself in the position you suggest." "But you say you met her, sir. Did she not see you?"

"No. She stood some yards from me tranquil and statuesque, quite unconscious of my presence-that I could swear."

"Surely she must have seen you-the moon, you said, was bright." "She did not see me. It is true I uttered an exclamation of surprise when I found her so close to me; for I thought she had vanished. She may have heard that cry."

"But what should this lady be doing in the fields at two o'clock in the morning?" he asked, with a light smile.

"That is precisely what I wish to know."

He slowly filled another pipe, with his lips moving as though in the process of rehearsal.

"Mr. Thorburn," said he, "I am sure you will excuse my freedom. I really think you should banish this subject from your mind. You have settled here for the purpose of prosecuting a good and lofty purpose, and you should suffer nothing to seduce you from devoting your whole energies to its accomplishment. No man can serve two mistresses. And knowledge, sir, let me assure you, is a mistress who, if she does not receive your whole heart, will give you little in return." "Your candour requires no apology, Martelli," I answered. "I am

sure you speak for my good, and I am grateful for the interest you take in me. But I must tell you that this woman has occupied my thoughts so long, that it is become a positive necessity to know her. Don't smile at what I am about to say-I protest, for my part, I was never more in earnest-I believe," I said solemnly, "that this woman is to be an influence on my life-though whether baleful or benignant is still the secret of the future. Why do you shrug your shoulders? Don't you believe in presentiments-in the power of the soul to foreshadow destiny? A few hours before I met her-this lady-she presented herself to me in a dream. Your sceptical mind would pronounce this a coincidence-the very dream, you think, might have generated the subsequent vision. But it was no coincidence. It was the operation of some mystic agency, to be credited without questioning; an agency as definite, though inscrutable, as the soul which informs our being with the knowledge of its existence, but ridicules our efforts to give that knowledge shape."

"Have you ever sought to meet her again?"

"I have not dared."

"Not dared!"

"You are surprised. But I had not Hamlet's resolution:

"Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou comest in such questionable shape,

I dare not speak to thee!'"

Martelli, had I met her close again as I met her that night, I should have gone mad. Her steady supernatural gaze, her rigid mien, her shape, which united the two extremes of spectral beauty and human sweetness, were shocking."

"Would you fear to meet her if you had a companion."

"I hardly know. Pray applaud my candour; you see I confess myself a coward.”

"It is no proof of cowardice. A brave man might reasonably recoil from encountering such an airy horror as enlivened your midnight ramble. As for me, I have no fear of ghost or goblin. A questionable shape would make me curious, not timid. Here, however, we should be dealing with no shadow. A phantom might, indeed, be a widow, though, it is said, that owing to the scarcity of priests, there are no marriages in heaven. But it would hardly bear the name of 'Mrs. Fraser' when it has a magnificent mythology to choose from. At what time did you say you met her?"

"It was two o'clock in the morning."

"A rather inconvenient hour," he exclaimed with a laugh. "Would not ten or eleven o'clock suit her as well? But it is enough that she should be a woman to be perverse. If you think that there is any