Year: 1879

Just 1T that moment there was nothing
III the universe between Vega Lyra and
me. | lay out there among the rocks at
the foot of the shrubs that the wind was
blowing the other way, the sea rustling
up the shingie far below in the soft
melancholy summer night.


Summer nights should not be melan-
choly, except as melancholy always fol
lows on the trail Of exceeding beauty in
our sensation, with the effort of the fin
ite to approach the minute, perhaps.
But Ill nights, in effect, and days too,
were melancholy then to me; the world
was desolation since Stella went to sea


If she had not gone as she did, I said
to myself when the first fire fell; but
what was one to expect of a young girl
suddenly launched on the luxury of the
most luxurious seaside life She was a
village maiden, and had not been SO
much admired in the country town,
where redder color and blacker eyes and
thicker hair were more the rustic taste.
But when [ went to Hillside IS the head
quarters of my sketching- ground, it
seemed to me that fairer hues and finer
lines and more ethereal beauty / had
never found-delicate as some chiselled
statue, color such as that statue might
have if il just began to breathe and
blush, and silky hair soft as child s
with tendril-like rings. In three months
time the airy perfect being had promised
to be my wife, whenever the good taste
of patrons should 50 increase that my
pictures would shelter two, and mean
while we kept the story Of our passion to
ourselve5-the sweeter secret.


Life sped on that year with rainbowed
wings; the future stretched bright rs q
dream; the present was pure JOY.


In the second year Stella went to visit
friends at Newport, once the summer
boarders of Hillside, but now the owners
of villa all peaks aud gables and veran
DIS, set amidst lawns and fountains and
vases overhowiGg with flowers. on the
edge Of the sea-a palace masqUerading
rs a cottage A shadow then seemed to
overspread the heavens with its evil
wings, and the gloom Of it was scarcely
lifted by the letters that came telling of
the gay life. One day / followed down
behind her, and established myself
Newport was one of my old haunts, and
| had known how to be happy there
once | did rot know how to be happy
there now. | had scarcely moment of
Stella to myself. If [ went to Mrs.
Rittener's in the morning, throng Of
beribboned damsels sat on the wide
porches encireiing Stella; they learned a
song, they practiced a new dance togeth-
er, and with the groups OF dandies,
young millionaires, and attaches of for
eign legations, they did little of the
Bocaccio ana Vatican life. In the af-
ternoon | found the horses at the gate.
Breakfasts, fetes, matinees, bathing,
driving. yachting, filled one day after
another, and Stella was the joyous thing
round which everything seemed to circle.
Il was new life to her. She knew it
did not belong to her: that it was leaf
borrowed from the existence of others


that she must 60 back to quiet duties
and restricted pleasures. 1t was like
reading some delicious romance, she
revelled in it now, and gave no heed tc
i the time when it should come to an end.


But II, of course. did not recognize
i this. l saw her like q butterfly hover,
I ing over bright flowers, as light as pur
/ poseless, as lovely, dancing in the beam
| drinking the perfume, and every day o.