University of Virginia Library

3. III.

Since Azarian was at home again, Ruth
forgot all the weary watching of June and
prepared herself to be happy. Certain hours
of the day she worked with her paints, and
worked for money too, as all she had was
gone; later, she fagged over her books, for she
feared, of all things, by her stupidity to do
discredit to Azarian's choice before the Russian
lady. Then in the long summer evenings
she sat with happy fancies, if she had them,
alone, if she had them not, for, to spare both
her eyes and her candles, she lit to light unless
thought and solitude became insupportable;
and she had said to herself that she had
been very selfish, and that with all his social
claims she had no right to expect Azarian on

more than two evenings in the week, and had
told him so. However, Azarian ran in when
he pleased, reported any piece of news, admired
her work, said she was getting a color,
played some air on his violin, said he kissed
her hands. Or, on the contrary, if she
were not there, he left some little imp sitting
astride her delicately-drawn grass-spires, or
ringing the chime out of the fairy bells of her
Linnæa, or he turned her painted snowdrop
into a plump wasp bleached for bridal, — as a
card; after which, of course, such things —
when found with a little pang of regret at her
absence, and well paid for by the loss of the
next day's airing — were too precious to part
with, if they had not, moreover, been spoiled.
That made small odds though, for, famous as
they had become, Ruth could not dispose of
half she did; — the year had been a disastrous
one, the summer was very slow, a financial
flurry was impending, and nobody had the
price to waste on kickshaws.

But it somehow happened that Azarian did
not always come on those two evenings appointed;
— either Madame Saratov had some
fine circle, or it was the club, or the old seductions
of the boat were uppermost again.
Ruth, who had grown to count upon them at
least, and who sometimes felt as if she required
his presence so much that she must go out
and seek him, waited till the clock struck
midnight, in hopes of just a brief moment as
he passed, yet waited in vain. Strange apprehensions
beset her too, as she fancied him on
the water at such times, fancied the keel of
some plunging ship crushing down his little
cockleshell of a boat in the dark, or when the
thunder-storms had been rolling and rattling
over the city, or when sudden flaws of wind
came down and wildly rustled all the trees
upon the square and sent the dust to heaven.
Once, indeed, having some special promise that
she could not dream of his breaking, and her

imagination all athrob and fevered with fear,
she caught a scarf or shawl and ran out into
the black hot night, meaning to make the
water's edge; when suddenly, under the shine
of a street-lamp, she fell upon him sauntering
along. And then, to prevent any such second
interference, Azarian punishingly declined to
enter, and left her at the door. But here this
state of feeling wrought an unconscious attraction;
her sadness was so great at his voluntary
delays over greater pleasure found with
others, her expectation so strained and eager,
that, when he did come, her spirits mounted to
such a pitch of airy volatile gayety, forever
rounded by the least shadowy refrain of the
preceding hour, that her presence became an
enchantment; he watched their wavering as
one watches a flame flickering in the wind,
and not till he had discovered their secret was
the fascination lost.

Ruth's lessons at this time were a great

blessing; she left thought in them, and was
hindered from reflecting upon how slight and
loose a thing this love of Azarian's was. As
he had foreseen, the Baroness Saratov became
an object of far more interest than her position
warranted, through the well-known weakness
of many people; a teacher, every one
desired to avail themselves of her services; a
lady, every one aspired to her intimacy. She
rented one floor of a small house. Her rooms
were as cosey as any nest, and yet made elegant
with countless trifles which had cost her
less than nothing. To-day under her spell,
a painting, with its palm-tree and pool and
gorgeous sky, was hung there by a young
artist who just began to dip his brush in
wells of tropic color; to-morrow a pupil who
wished to do her pleasure begged acceptance
of an album of the photographs of precious
places in Europe; yesterday a publisher had
presented her with his choicest volumes; she
had nothing to do but dispose them. That
little gem, where one long ripple of green
water broke on a curving beach, Marine had
sent her, when after her extravagant admiration
it yet found no purchaser; that bust
Carrara had given in Rome, fresh from his
chisel, — she had procured him a commission.
An open pianoforte here, a half-veiled easel
there, the single blossom of some rare exotic
daily renewed in a snowy vase-stem, all conspired
to produce dainty effect; and throughout,
there was a stroke, an art, a sense of
something foreign, that completed the charm,
whether it were in the flask of delicate perfume
forever exhaling to the air; the quaint
ornaments, — a demoiselle-fly in such brilliantly
enamelled metal that the sardonyx, the
smaragdite, the sapphire, seemed to sheathe
its mail, its wings so fine and airy ever hovering
on the point of flight, yet with gravity
sufficient for a paper-weight; a little basket
of snowy lightness cut from the fig-pith and
filled with grasses, wheat-ears, thorns, and
leaves, of the same dazzlingly delicate fibre,
and looking all like one exquisite petrifaction,
for allumettes; for timepiece a tiny clepsydra,
dug from an ancient ruin, thousands of
years ago measuring the inspirations of the
oracle, the winning moment of the lampad,
the passionate greeting and parting of lovers
long since dust, the smile of Rhodope perhaps,
perhaps the vagrant song of Homer; —
the folding-screen of rosy damask; or the occupancy.
Madame Saratov was the creature of
luxury, she demanded, and therefore had, the
best of everything. A faithful maid haunted
her steps; her chosen raiment was silks and
velvets; she suffered from unpleasant dreams
if the coverlet were less than satin; she was
always soft and white and cool; her hands
were still as beautiful as that model of them
that peered from behind the droop of the curtain;
she had kept her jewels through every
reverse, and the very thimble with which she
stitched the vine upon her cambric was thick
crusted at the base with pearls. She had not
been in town two months before she was on
more familiar terms with every notable person
than were those who had known them all
their days; the politician came to her with
his schemes and benefited by her tact; the
star requested her reading of some passage,
her tradition of some gesture, her idea of
some point; the preacher talked with her,
and in her vein of rapt pietic ecstasy almost
expected to see her translated before his eyes,
and dropped his blessing on her bended head;
and in the warm shadows of her room, breathing
the subtile odors, and sipping perhaps,
betweenwhiles, draughts of some richly-rosy
perfumed cordial, the poet read his verses,
and went away intoxicated with them, with
her, and with himself. It was especially
pleasant to Azarian to come and go, among all
these more deferential, as autocratically as he
pleased. She had a trick, too, of surprising
her late-lingering company with little suppers,
ravishing revels, when from tiny engraven
bubbles of glass she drank to the health of
her charming guests, in maraschino; there
was a flavor in the unknown dishes that made
it possible to believe one ate the famous tart
of pomegranates; and if the feast consisted
of nothing but sliced oranges, they lay under
their crystals of sugar in plates whose ruby
whorls or azure banqueted the eye. There
was a silent kinship of race between Azarian
and Madame Saratov; in her he found that
certain genial dash of foreign things which
inheritance made delicious to his nature. In
all her style, too, there was a saucy disregard
of any future day of reckoning, a thing that
suited him as well. These little suppers
absorbed many an evening that by right
belonged to Ruth. It amused him, then,
sometimes to accompany Ruth at her recitations,
to contrast the two, to play them off,
Madame Saratov humoring him, the other
shrinking into herself; and if he chose to
stay the hour, of course poor little Ruth, under
his presence, made a very dunce of herself,
though preferring even such display and
pain, so seldom of late did she see him at
all. Spiritless girl, not to throw him off, and
when the pique was past weep lifelong solitary
tears or else harden her heart to stone!
But Ruth had not thought of that yet, so she
endured his demure scoffs and laughed up at
him beseechingly when the failure was egregious.
Stepping into Madame Saratov's salon
was, to Ruth, like an emigration to a distant
country; she could scarcely blame her lover
for delaying where it was in fact so delightful
to herself; she coveted a fragment only of the
other's versatility, but she saw plainly that
the foreign lady was not the friend her sore
heart needed. Yet Madame Saratov liked
Ruth, she was so fresh and simple; it was
holding a wild-flower in her hand; she took
pains to draw her out of herself, she refused
others that Ruth might dally with her awhile,
she helped her by severe criticism and glad
praise, and she began to puzzle herself in
wonderment over her engagement to so selfish
and graceless a scamp as Azarian. She
had serious thoughts of sprinkling a shower
of water-drops in her face, so if possible to
break the bewitchment. Azarian did well
enough as her own courtier; she allowed him
certain freedom there because he was so admirable;
but she told him one day, with a
laugh, that he reminded her of those vampires
who grew fat sucking the heart's-juices
of young maidens. Azarian drew the black
brows together in a line over the icy pale-blue
brilliancy of his lustrous eyes, lightened
once, and said no more. Neither did Madame
Saratov.

Ruth used sometimes to wonder now in the
October mornings, as she faced the glass, if
Azarian cared less for her because she was
not so pretty as once, — for Ruth had always
liked her looks, in her own way, — she was
so very thin and pale, and had such shadows
under her lashes, and her cheeks beginning
to seem as though she were no longer young.
Azarian did not know what companion came
and sat daily at her elbow in his absences,
making her brain clearer, her ideas purer,
her tints more vivid, but taking slowly in return
the tone from life,

and some little leaven of pride had, after all,
remained, for Ruth never told him. Watching
deep into night for one who did not come,
the late hours, the excitement, the anxieties,
the grief, the determination against murmuring,
even to herself, so inward as to be unknown,
— all had their effect on health, and
depression was settling upon her anew, that
it needed but a touch to fix. She feared she
was going to die and leave him; and because,
when truth is plainest and denies,
hope often is most buoyant and, knocking at
heaven's gate, demands, she still trusted that
a day would come when all his old desire
of her would renew itself, and by unspoken
intuitions she recognized his need of her saving
grace at last, and felt her capability of bestowing
it. Nobody else will ever love him as
I do, Ruth thought; I was put here to serve
him; if I should leave him, there would be
no other one; when he comes to die, he will
want — O so longingly! — a breast to lean
upon. Perhaps behind that there was the
glimmering thought that a home and its dear
ties and sacrifices would yet soften him, and
give him all that he had not; though, consciously,
she would not acknowledge in her
most secret soul that he was not already
perfection. But the very fear, the dread of
forsaking him so, leaving him loveless in the
world, forbade her indignation to usurp her
passion, and only made her tenderer.

But here, one day, Azarian commented on
her looks, and told her she must cease her
lessons. Then he took up his Guarnerius,
and scraped a great yawn across the strings.

“What a sleepy!” said Ruth, lightly.
“One would think you sat up last night till
the clock struck eleven, for somebody.”

“Nobody's fault but her own. If somebody
's not here by nine, he 's not coming
at all,” and he caressed the instrument beneath
his chin; for he loved its beauty of
outline, its supple sides, its royal varnish,
and its sounding soul. “Ruth, have you
been playing on my fiddle?”

“No, indeed; you play enough for me. I
wish —”

“Well, little — but you 're not like an
elder now, you 're more like a snowberry, —
what do you wish?”

“I wish — you would n't play all the time
when you come to see me,” she replied, with
a courageous coaxingness.

“So you don't like my music?”

“Yes, I do. O very much. But I like
you better.”

“Quite adroit. But then, seems to me,
you 'd like me to take my pleasure. Oh,
it 's because I don't play classical music.”

“I did n't know that.”

“But, only fancy, every note I utter goes
forth and becomes a portion of the music
of the spheres; and when the great composers
in their trances reach up among the
stars, they gather these very strains floating
there or caught in the glittering web-work

of the orbits, and so my little tunes become
parts of the great orchestral harmonies that
they strike out deathlessly. Don't you see?”

“O yes; but” —

But Azarian silenced her with a kiss, and
then another; for he really cared as much
for her as it was in his nature to care for
anybody except himself, and went off with
his fiddle tucked under his arm.

One chilly twilight, — just when impatient
feet are hurrying home to lights and laughter
and cheerful glow of fires, — Ruth, alone,
wrapped in her shawl, was startled by a voice
beneath her window, — for minstrels were infrequent
in the square, — a loud clear sweet
soprano voice, that absolutely seemed to sparkle
in its contact with the frosty air. She looked
down, and by the aid of the lingering ruddy
orange discerned a group beneath, a woman,
hooded in a black kerchief, and clad in some
fantastic disarray of garment that displayed

an ankle shapely under all its slouching apparel
of slipshod foot-gear. She tossed a tambourine,
and sung wild songs in an unknown
tongue full of soft guttural breathings. At
her left, in round jacket and red-tasselled cap
drooping aside, her companion surrounded her
lay with flourishes of tune from his violin.
Behind them, two young tatterdemalions jangled
strings of silver bells in what unison they
could. Ruth opened her window, the better
to hear and see, and leaned forth. The strong
full voice poured in richly, and the player,
bending to his task, sent up honeyed strains
of accord, the jets leaping and spurting from
the strings beneath his powerful stroke. In
the first break, Ruth ventured to laugh and
gently applaud; then Azarian, who had concealed
his face, looked up, with a flash of
his teeth in response, and Madame Saratov
opened a pouch and displayed a glitter of
coin.

“A penny for your thoughts?” begged she,
in her alluring accent. “It is a charity: add
your mite, pour les orphelins. Then come
home with us and count it.”

Azarian was looking. Ruth tossed down
her silver, though it was the very last she
had. To-morrow — well, to-morrow must
take care of itself. Providence provides
for artists and authors as it does for the
birds of the air. Then she closed the window,
caught up her bonnet and gloves and
ran down to join them, and went along positively
gay with the adventure and with the
prospect of Azarian all the evening and perhaps
home again with her. Fast at their heels
the young vagabonds followed, jangling their
peals.

Entered, and under the glare of gas and
mirrors, the elder twain burst into laughing
at their odd figure, and the younger performed
an antic dance round the apartment,

with all kinds of quaint and graceful gesture
moving to the wonderful music of their bells;
after which Madame Saratov insisted on bivouacking
like Gypsies on the carpet and telling
their gains; and then, dismissing Isa, would
wait on table herself, though there was nothing
but a cup of tea and some cracknels,
at which, to Ruth's perplexity, they were
joined by the urchins in their rags, who were
no other than Messieurs the Barons Saratov,
she discovered, as with malicious enjoyment
of her silent surprise Azarian presented them
to her, — Azarian full of his freaks, and keeping
up his character by snatches of music between
the sips, now and then telegraphing
a caress to Ruth through the farther end of
his bow, for no object but her embarrassment.
When, however, the hostess and her
young train withdrew, she half hoped he would
signify some real, if faint, pleasure at her society;
Azarian did, indeed, enjoy it, but never
thought of telling her so. On the contrary,
Madame Saratov found him, as she had left
him, industriously sawing away, and weaving
her Northern melodies into some Scandinavian
revery of Freya of the golden tears seeking
Oder and beguiling all her way with
airs of heaven. Azarian looked forward to a
whole lifetime with Ruth, and did not dream
of economizing the present. Meanwhile the
young gentlemen, in altered guise and raiment,
fresh from bath and toilet, had already
stolen back; and, looking at their open handsome
faces where the noblest marks of their
vigorous race were strongly written, Ruth's
fancy warmed toward them, and then, after
an initial period, she found herself in a low
voice with the exaggerating aids of free-playing
eyebrow, contrasting attitudes and tones,
recounting to them a laughable legend of their
own trolls, which it was no wonder they had
never heard, as it was purely an invention
of Azarian's, — illustrating it, as she went
along, with grotesque hand-shadows on the
wall, and with a mimicry of expression that
made her, in speaking, every character at once.
It was Azarian's turn now. He watched her
in surprise. If he did not frighten her out
of all confidence, what a treasure was this
for a rainy night! The boys, who were at
that age when the stature seems to pause to
gather strength for its sudden leaps into final
maturity of size, hung on her words at first
with parted lips, remaining motionless through
the instinct of their somewhat courtly manners,
and then at last, the barriers of a flood
of merriment giving way, rolled over each
other on the floor, picking themselves up,
with profuse apology, as their mother's hand
was heard upon the door.

“Well,” said Azarian, on the first lady's
return, “what is the order of the evening?”

“Miss Yetton and I do attend the theatre,
— alone, — unless —?”

“What is there there?”

“The new play goes to present itself, and
La Charmian.”

“Charmian? Pshaw!”

“Let me tell you that your `Pshaw!' is
an actress very remarkable.”

“Remarkably bad, yes.”

“O oui! Mais vraiment oui! Qu'il parle!
She who becomes a woman of the most famous!
I go many of nights to see her! I
count of my enthusiasms the Charmian!”

“Tant pis!”

“So you will not go? You shall have but
few of chances more. She has success; she
goes to make to commence an engagement
in England for some years” —

“Glory go with her!”

“That it will, in three weeks. And you
will not applaud?”

“In this costume? Pardon. I will be
there to wait upon you, with permission.”

“Thank you for nothing,” she laughed.
“Les voilà, a bodyguard to make you yawn!”

“As Madame pleases,” he replied, bending
his ear to catch a vanishing semitone. “Do
you want to go, Ruth?”

Madame Saratov, instantly outraged, was
instantly appeased by the novel appearance
of consideration. But Madame Saratov was
not behind the scenes. Ruth had hesitated
at the proposal; little heart had she for such
gay places; but then to see —. She nodded
with shining eyes. So they started down the
bright streets on their long wide windy way,
Ruth's hand grasped by the boy Ivan, of
whom, on letting them out, Isa, indignant at
some jest, had declared: “Such a child was
not before born into the world. His tutor,
in vex, do report that he laugh all the time,
and when he don't laugh, he gap!” Azarian
strode silently beside them, seated them comfortably
at last, and betook himself off.

Madame Saratov finds out who is there,
at a glance, collects her hovering chevaliers,
and lets Ruth abandon herself to her dreaming.
It is the same intoxication to Ruth as
ever: the lights, the hues, the stir; she hardly
sees the curtain rise, but suddenly finds herself
living the life the scenes present.

The play opens in the palace, at the table,
with music, and slaves bearing golden dishes.
There are present the old Emperor, courtiers,
among them the impetuous Lucinius. When
one mentions the late victories in the East,
the Emperor bends, and, with bland smiling
mouth, but eyes whose fires beneath gray
brows might wither him to ashes, asks Lucinius
concerning the victor, and straightway
Lucinius launches into panegyric till silenced
by the angry monarch who breaks up the
brilliant feast in dismay. Then the scene
changes to a moonlit garden, with soldiers
in glittering armor and upright battle-axes

keeping the imperial gate. Grouped in a
knot they converse, low-voiced, of the young
general now on his return from conquest;
they rehearse his spoils, remind each other
of the wonders of his celerity and his combinations,
tell of his gallantry, his generosity,
his genius, and of the jealous power upon
the throne at home continually thwarting
him and to-day refusing a triumph. As they
speak, a slender girl comes floating down
the long garden-aisles where all is dusky peace
and serenity, her white robes fluttering about
her, her black hair loose beneath the thread
that binds a trembling silver star upon her
forehead. Their words arrest her; she draws
near, and stands in the semi-shadow with
folded hands and bending brow, and the silver
star flickering and darting its rays as her
pulses stir. The only word that escapes her
is his name, — Aurelius. The guard perceive
her. It is Virgilia, they exclaim, and withdraw
each upon his separate beat. She advances
then a step, but still remains rapt in
the heroic fancies his name evoked, now and
then repeating it beneath her breath. As she
yet stands, enter two courtiers, — one talking
cautiously, the other Lucinius. They return
from the banquet, and speak concerning
it; for there is small doubt but that Lucinius
has given the hoary tyrant deadly offence
by his daring praise of Aurelius. But O for
one day of Aurelius! Lucinius cries. The
army all his own, would but some hand blest
by the gods do to death our tyrant, — he has
one heir alone, who does not know her right,
and, believing herself to be kinswoman of
the dead Empress, never needs to know it, —
and with Aurelius on the throne such glories
should arise on Rome as might make wan the
lustre of her past. Ah, what heart is hot
enough, what hand so holy! Here, at these
words, as she leans forward, with half-raised
palm and flashing eye, the startled knights
salute the Lady Virgilia, and pass on silently;
but before they reach the gate hidden emissaries
spring forth, and, leaving the other, hale
Lucinius to a dungeon. Virgilia has seen it;
it adds only one more to the long list of tyrannies
that she has known. Alone, her thoughts
declare themselves, — this hero, dwarfed from
his possibilities, becomes in her eyes a god;
how great must be the stroke when the vibration
rings in all men's ears! To aid his wide
renown, to serve him even so much as by
being the dust he walks on, to cease the base
servitude under which her country totters, to
drown the groans in shouts, to open dungeon-doors,
to make way for such glorious reign, —
her stature rises, the star shines on her uplifted
brow, her face glows with devoted purpose.
But the way, — the way! A trembling
seizes her, — there is but one! Then she
goes. She who came a pure and happy
maiden departs already sin-stained in her
dreams, — a bold and terrible contrast. There
follows a quick pageant of other scenes, where
Virgilia, still nursing her idea of crime, dispels
all circles by her mere approach. In the
wide hall some game goes on; Virgilia, with
the star trembling on her brow, steals silently
upon the scene; the groups melt singly one
by one before her; in mild abstraction moving
on, the music falls to melancholy tune,
the dances languish, the dancers droop and
draw away; she joins the new ring, only to
find herself freshly forsaken and apart; she
follows the clusters round the hall; each time
they separate and disappear, and leave her
there alone. She goes out. Again, the star
on her forehead bickering back the ray of
the taper she bears, she traverses at night the
long dungeon-corridors: conspirators whisper
there; but as she passes, they lose their courage
and their will, and creep away as if awed,
and conscious of the approach of a greater
crime than theirs; she emerges into a wider
way, and sets down the light, — all this blackness,
these moans, these clanking chains,
evoked by a power as easily quenched as this
tiny flame, — she extinguishes the taper. And
then she sacrifices at the altar, and the fire
goes out. Here Virgilia wavers, and here
Aurelius comes. She is present when he is
received at court with haughty disfavor and
disdain. They meet as the monarch withdraws,
and he bends before her, overcome with
sudden delight; for hitherto his heart has
burned with no fire but that of pure patriotism.
It is in the moonlit garden again that
Aurelius talks with his friend; of too facile nature
to breast the hour's displeasure, he finds
other satisfactions; he has no fancy for imperial
favors, nor for the luxuries of courts; never
will he promote discord through ambition;
these dark hints, wherein so much is offered,
loyal to the heart's core, he spurns, — glory
forever plays along his sword-blade; he will
away to the frontier and serve his country as
he may by tossing back the wild waves of the
barbarian hordes. Lofty as valiant he builds
up his dream, — and here, far down across the
bottom of the garden, Virgilia is seen to flit,
turning, upon the two, eyes of glad vengeful
triumph, and, still clutched with the nervous
intensity of the deed, distinct against her
white raiment is the reddened dagger. There
follow stormy scenes of alarum, of confusion,
of coronation. By night again, Virgilia in
her wild unrest paces the garden-walks, the
silver star no longer shining on her forehead,
but all her dark unfilleted hair streaming
loose over the white shawl that wraps her
white array. To her enters Aurelius crowned.
Art does her most to beautify the scene, with
late moonrise, urns of flowers, plash of fountains,
and far-away slow rise and fall of music.
The sense of night is perfect, and so the sense
of love in the two figures that draw near each
other, for Virgilia meets him as if the god had
come to demand her worship. He holds her
hands, in brief terms speaks, asks her to
strengthen his throne, lifts the crown from his
head, and suffers it to fall on hers. Was it
for this! For power, for empery, for herself,
had she done that deed? The thought
of her possible share in its gain had never
before occurred; she wrings the detestable
hand as if to tear its act away with it, her
blood boils in her veins, she dashes down the
crown, and the splendid bawble spins along
the ground. But he loves, Aurelius loves
her! And what vile thing is this which
she has made herself, which she has made
the soul his love embraces! Beneath her
raiment still lurks the knife. Let her die
here and now, on his heart! Just then a
little page trips through the gardens, tinkling
his lute, and singing cheerily some
verse whose refrain flows,
Aurelius breathes some ardent word, his vows
protest, his arms await. Then love is best, —
she says. She turns upon him, and looks him
through and through; she raises the crown
and invests him with it anew. Her work, he
is, her triumph, — joy surges up to her lips
in proud glad words, his love completes it in
delicate and tender passion; they go in, and
the place opens out to a hall of revelry.
When next Virgilia comes upon the scene,
she trails imperial purple, and a band of
cameos binds the blackness of her hair; she
is flushed with regnant pride and the sweet
taste of authority, but ever and anon throws
anxious glances after her lord as he moves
among their guests; for the retributive Fates
tread swift behind. At length seating herself,
she beckons him to her side. But looking
down when nigh, he murmurs, with a
start, that there is blood upon his throne.
She retorts in the same key, by asking if one
who wades ankle-deep in battle-fields need
shiver at a drop dried on his chair. He
would seat himself, but is hindered by that
which glides in and occupies it first, — the
phantom of the murdered Emperor. She
offers him her hand for aid, he shrinks as if
he saw a stain upon it. For all these things,
happening to him instead of her, are but the
bodily projection of his wife's guilt slowly
making itself visible. Yet he does not so
reason, but, weakened by the recurring surprises,
he begins to question if he himself be
not the culprit; he doubts if it was vehemently
that he repulsed those first dark overtures;
his eye is ever distraught, his attention forced,
his breath a weary sigh; his government goes
wrong, confusion reigns in his provinces, a
power built upon tyrannicide itself wields an
insupportable sceptre, couriers enter his presence
only to announce misfortune, his health
gives way, his brain reels, — and Virgilia follows
him like a shadow. At length, in the
same garden that saw her first conception of
crime, that she crossed upon its execution, in
which she took up her destiny, Aurelius
comes, while distant thunders roll and blue
lightnings flash their blades down the darkness
of the trees, — he comes and asks if it
can be possible that in some mad and forgotten
moment, some lapse of the intellect, some
delirium, if in his sleep, it can be possible he
took his sovereign's life, — for loyalty was the
breath of the being of Aurelius. And he cries
out that he loathes himself, loathes the flesh
that so has sinned. The bolt has fallen.
Fate has overcome Virgilia; her work follows
her. He maddens with this belief, and to
undeceive him is to die. Hating himself,
how would he abhor her! Could she bear
it? His love, — can she lose it? His love!
she has lost it already; it is not she that possesses
it, but the false, false image of her in his
heart. Her mind wanders back and lingers
on the dreadful deed, her hands upon her
temples, her wild eyes full of terror, “His old
white hair,” she mutters. But here a band
of gay maskers with torches and lutes troop
through the distance, evading the advancing
storm, their gayety throwing out the tragedy
of these two figures. Virgilia glances at her
Emperor where he has sunk upon one knee
with the groan escaping him, takes her resolve,
and gives him one last look, tender,
pitying, passionate, a look as if it were a
wife's embrace. Then going to him, she asks,
with one hand upon his shoulder, what is his
idle fancy. He only murmurs the old Emperor's
name. She recoils a moment from
the ghastly fire that seems for one breath to
wrap the world, and then replies.

“The Emperor? Hark, — I slew him.”

“Virgilia! — thou?”

“I. And I keep the dagger for myself!”
drawing it from beneath her robes. “A good
deed! Rome's salvation!”

“Wretch! Thy father!”

“Nay — I — slew him.”

“Virgilia — thou — ” he reiterates, and it
is all he says. But reason has returned and
thrown her light upon the past; he does not
doubt. He trembles away from her touch;
his eyes meet hers, as if their horror and disgust
were death-strokes. Remorse, despair,
agonize her frame. She shudders to his feet,
the dagger in her heart, wreathing one arm
about his knee, and sighing, “I — for I loved

thee.” A hollow roar of thunder tears the
air, sudden blackness sheets the place, and far
away the mailed sentinel at the gate catches
the distant watch-word, and, repeating, cries,
“All 's well.”

There was incident, side-plot, by-play, in
the thing, there were points and room for
power; but to Ruth it consisted only of a
succession of startling and perfect figures,
each one in geste and deed, in fold and curve,
a statuesque study infiltrated and permeated
with a glow of passion and abandon, and all
of them Charmian.

Ruth returned with Madame Saratov and
her court, dissolved in dreaming. They were
all in a state of dilettante rapture, which
must have mightily pleased Azarian. Madame
Saratov was kindly eager that Ruth should
stay and sup; the boys, clinging round her,
could take no denial; but Azarian, with a
novel regard for her health, would not hear

of it; and though they were bringing in the
dishes that sent their appetizing smoke before
them, and though to fasting Ruth, if one will
pardon her, the crisp turn of the broiled teal,
— Azarian's shooting, — the faint vanilla odors
and cinnamon flavors, the strenghtening aroma
of the coffee, were tempting enough, she opposed
no objection, and was hurried off, — for
her lover was to return, after his farewell and
imperative injunction that she should immediately
seek her pillow.

But no pillow did Ruth visit that night.
She was fired with joyous excitement. And
the dawn-light saw her still bending over her
scattered sheets and pencils. Then at last she
slept, — one of those sweet sleeps that follow
accomplishment, haunted by noiseless dreams,
outlines of glorious and unattainable beauty
ever rhythmically sequent, and filled, by the
keen sunshine sifting through her lids, with
colors of flame and light, — sleep deep, blissful,

and oblivious. Such sweet and fiery fervor
of work and such intoxicating reaction
dulled half the edge of Azarian's treatment,
when they could be had. He would have
reprobated them much, but in fact to them he
owed it that his doom did not envelop him
sooner. Later that day a publisher for these
drawings was obtained, and the next week
found wonderful etchings in all the windows,
mere contours with scarcely a hint of shadow,
but beautiful as the dreams themselves.
Whether when wandering with the virgin star
of her innocence trembling on her forehead;
when flashing across the garden's foot, the
weapon in her hand; when flushed with imperial
sway, moving among her maidens, the
white throat swelling proudly outward like a
swan's; when followed by the vague train of
the retributive Fates; when vainly essaying to
lift a heavy heart in prayer; when rising from
despair into a radiant sudden swift-flying happiness
that transformed her face into miracles
of splendor; in that wild moment of woe
when she sees the impress of her crime on him
she loves; in that awful one when she looks
face to face with the Nemesis; or when at
last fallen at her husband's feet, shrouded in
the heavy masses of drapery that swirl and
slowly settle round her, the white uplifted
arm alone left clinging to life, — all lovely as
sculpture, all perfect as pure form could be,
all full of the vivid fire of art that moulds
clay and makes it something imperishable, all
as if the lost Pleiad were picturing her path,
and all drawn with a clarity of line, with a
nerve and vigor, as if a diamond had etched
them upon crystal. If Charmian's fame had
last week been insecure, to-day it was fixed as
the stars.

Azarian was in a rare rage when he came
in one morning with a handful of them, and
the only reason that the plate was not destroyed

was because it had passed beyond her
power. He insisted that she should go out
with him and ascertain if that were really so;
and when they returned, they found the room
steeped in fragrance and fairly sown with
flowers, — chairs, tables, vases, books, and
carpet, all astrew, — great wide-blown exotics
in deep shades and powerful contrasts, and
the soul dying out of them in strong sweet
odors that took the delighted breath away.
Ruth kissed the broad petals as she caught
them up in her hand, — she knew well where
they came from. Had Azarian known, the
window would have found their passage to the
street. As it was, he watched her put the
thirsty stems to drink, all but those white
ones hanging about her father's chair, — those
staid as Charmian placed them; if he caught
her lip quivering, in this ruffled state of his
feathers it was pleasant as an evidence of his
power, — compassion was foreign to the soul
of Azarian. Then he anathematized Ruth,
time, and his patients, and was off; nor did
he condescend to present himself again for
a dozen days, partly from convenience, partly
on account of other pleasures, partly in chastisement
for her great misdemeanor. Meantime,
of course, Ruth worked, and meantime
worked in vain; for though, in its first flush,
Love had enriched her as a June sun enriches
the blossoming mould, of late it had abstracted
life and strength; the other's faithlessness prevented
its being the ambient atmosphere in
which she moved; it had come to be but a
mere outgrowth of her own soul, fed from a
chilled and half-exhausted soil, like those lingering
things, the flaunting flowers that suck
the rich earth dead. Azarian had so wholly
her thoughts, her dreams, and her desires, that
art refused to receive the poor remainder;
there was no fertility in her fancy, no color
in her pencil. The only thing she did that
had a ray of the old sparkle was a stem of
berries, whose scarlet juicy lights were veiled
in meshes of the witch-hazel's yellow tangles;
and just as she contemplated it, on her sad
face a faint smile like a moonbeam parting
a vapory heaven, some one's foot bounded
up the staircase, and Azarian came in.

Ruth had been trying, for discipline, to
capture and tame a belief that necessity occasioned
these indifferences and absences of
her lover's, and, nowise self-analyzing, did not
know, indeed, that she was but suffering herself
to drift along this current of her hopes
and fears till some certain boundary were
reached, — only half felt the volcanic forces
now stifled within, one day to make upheaval.
As to excuses, Azarian never availed himself
of them. If Ruth found fault, she was welcome
to keep it; and to some natures such
lordly behavior is the pressure that still draws
the streams from the deep wells in the heart.

When he entered the room, humming, as was
his wont, some one of the Miltonic quatrains,
or, after a fioriture of whistling, breaking into
another, —
how was it possible to be angry, or to do anything
but couple him with their beauty and
melody? When, at length, he was ready to
kiss her, and then went rattling on a gay extravagance
of laughable nonsense, how could
she be chiding? In fact, all Ruth had ever
pretended to do was to forget the past, and
let the spirit of the hour rule. But to-day
that unsuspected little leaven was sending its
fermenting bubbles upwards; there had been
a touch of indignation that she should so pour
out her whole life at his feet, and he not even
stoop to pick it up; and though it vanished
at sight of his face, and sound of his voice,
all things leave their trace behind them.

“Very pretty,” remarked Azarian, carelessly,
looking over her shoulder at the recent
work.

“I have lost all my power,” she said.

“As if you ever had any! I suppose I
have absorbed it. Well, I 'm willing; are n't
you?”

“Yes, — if I could afford it.”

“Afford? Do you mean to paint after —
after you 're married?” Even Azarian's courage
was a little staggered by his impudence.

The color flew over Ruth's face, till it
pained her. Almost a year was it since, in
his first raptures, he had alluded to such a
possibility.

“Well, then, you won't need the power,
and I shall; because I expect to do greatly
when I reach my meridian.”

“Not before?” Ruth asked, archly.

“No, I despise prematurities, prodigies, excrescences
of the brain, two-headed eagles” —

“Mozart, for instance.”

“Exceptions prove the rule. He was n't
a human being; he was a musician. Where 's
my violin? Why have n't I another here? I
wonder who has Paganini's Tartini?”

“I guess you have.”

“Mine 's a Guarnerius.”

“He had a living soul imprisoned in his,
you know.”

“Pooh! Well, you have n't such a thing as
a bird-call, or a comb and a piece of paper?”

“No, you silly boy.”

“Silly, eh? Allow me to observe that it
is the same great principle of vibration that
settled the structure of the violin. Yes, exceptions

prove the rule,” said Azarian, walking
about with his hands in his pockets, as
there was nothing else to do with them. “The
mould that shaped a Penseroso, at twenty,
would have cracked and split to atoms with
the gigantic germ of a Satan. I have a little
theory to the purpose. Do you know that in
August we stand in exactly the same relative
position towards the sun that we do in April?
But the one brings only cold showers and
drifting snows, patches of blue sky and blithe
promise, and it is not till the summer solstice
has accumulated all the sunshine, and the
earth is soaked in hoarded warmth and light,
that the other gives back the fervid wealth,
gilds her billowy fields of grain, and greets
retiring day with ripe rich orchard-sides. So
let no man audit his own accounts till he
is fifty. Tarde magna proveniunt. As for
women, let them do what they 're able whenever
they can,” said Azarian, with a hearty
contempt. “What do you think of that, little
woman?”

“O, it 's very consolatory, — especially the
last. There you touch the root of all the
evils. If I had been Alphonso of Castile!”

“You would have suggested —?”

“Something more radical than he dreamed
of.”

“A surd quantity. What might it be?”

“There never should have been a woman
made!”

“Oh indeed! Wormwood and thoroughwort
tea, — extract of Miss Yetton's bitterness, —
which means that a man has no business to
talk anything but whipt-syllabub and kisses
to his little sweetheart.”

“An untried experiment.”

“Satirical too, by Jove!”

“Am I your little sweetheart? Do you
care anything about me?” asked Ruth, under
her breath, in a sweet, coaxing tone.

“I don't know. You ought to,” he replied,
with a blackbird's whistle, and then beginning
to sing,

“Azarian,” said Ruth, timidly, again after
a moment's silence, “are you quite sure that
you love me well enough to marry me?”

“If a breeze never blew, stagnation would
ensue, — which is the reason, I suppose, that
the best of women sometimes insist upon a
fuss,” he replied, wheeling round upon her.
“You want we should arrive at an understanding,
do you? Here we are, then. Childe
Roland to the Dark Tower came. You 've
been imposed upon, neglected, and abused.
If you please,” with a wave of the hand.
“You 've been sacrificed to selfish pleasures.
You 've been left to pine alone. I received
your happiness in charge, and take no care
of it whatever. You weary of your one-sided

affair, in which you give all, and my commodities
do not meet your wants. Yet you started
with your eyes open. I never condescended
to a concealment. If you were but once well
out of the scrape!”

“O no, no, Azarian,” sobbed little Ruth,
her head on the table.

“No? Then come kiss your heartless
wretch, and be still. What, turned over a
new leaf and blotting it already? We may
as well have it out,” said Azarian, with a fresh
inflection for every sentence. He took her
hand, but apparently in a purely medical capacity,
— as the surgeon keeps his finger on
the vein, in the hall of torture, — and, holding
it, continued. “Every man has a wife,
therefore I. Black moments visit all, then
all need a fireside; better at such times the
corner of a workhouse chimney, where faces
are, than a lonely den, albeit luxurious, where
they are not. You bewitched me once; and

when the thrall loosened, I saw this. You
remember they say those old statues, those
faultless forms, those Grecian women of idealized
bodies, can have no soul, — the physical
perfected at expense of the intellect. Look
at an outline here, Ruth,” and his face made
a silhouette against the deep noon light.
“Pure Greek. Can the Apollo have a heart?
You will make the wife I wish, — quiet, docile,
submissive, — power enough to aid, grace
enough for a companion, tact enough to let
alone and wait when unrequired, — qualities
I might seek far, and not find in another. To
pretend myself to be madly in love would be
ridiculous; but to separate from you would
occasion me more inquietude than I care to
encounter.”

A slow indignation and amazement were
burning Ruth up. “You have said it all,
sir!” said she, half rising, and trying to tear
away her hand. “Everything is over between

us. I never, never will be that wife, so help
me” —

“Take care, little one. You will only eat
your words. You will be my wife, and you
know it. We are bound, God sees why, by
indissoluble ties, and you feel them. In reality,
we are almost one now, or I could not
treat you so, as if you were a part of me to agitate
as I pleased. You are promised me; you
are mine; I never, never will give you back
that promise, so help me — what did n't help
you. Rock your heart to rest, — 't is a troublesome
little atom, — and don't interrupt the
oracle. Sit down, Ruth. Indeed, I could n't
let you go. If no other lover ever addressed
a woman so, it is because no other lover ever
relied on the woman's intelligence so — entirely
— as I do. The wives of men of genius
must not expect the tranquil existence of those
who marry poodles. The husband always
waxes the friend; yours has done so a trifle

sooner than ordinary. Take the goods the
gods provide. Be content with being allowed
so to lavish yourself on me, Ruth; — some
day, perhaps, — on my death-bed, — I shall
look up and understand it all and return it.
Fluttering little pulse, be still, be still. When
we are married next June, remember these
things, and don't exact too much of me,
and you can make yourself quite comfortable.”

Ruth essayed to subdue the riot within her;
but when they had been quiet for a time, it
all bubbled up anew at his calm tones.

“It 's a fallacy that women are lovely in
tears” —

“I 'm not crying,” murmured Ruth, stoutly,
in the very face of a plunging shower.

“Who said you were?” laughed Azarian.
“I merely advanced a general apothegm. You
are the girl in the fairy-tale whose mouth
dropped roses, and whose eyes dropped — I

suppose you call this a brilliant,” looking at
something fallen brightly on his cuff. “In
that case, how royally besprent shall I be!
But in the other, — if I put up an umbrella, —
ah! here comes the sun!” For Ruth's laugh
set her eyelashes a-glitter.

“It could n't be,” said she, “that one was
the least bit dearer than you knew” —

“Why could n't it be? Let us cherish the
kind illusion. My little girl, perhaps, after
all, there is a seedling of love deep down under
my rubbish, which, in a desire to be plain,
I have not given credit for. Ruth, accept
your fate.”

“Dear Azarian,” said she, trying hard to
keep her voice steady, “I am sorry I spoke so
then” —

“Nonsense! I like one best with a trifle
of spirit.”

“I — I want to do what is best for you.
If you should really meet the woman who was

all to you that you are to me, by and by, when
too late” —

“It would never be too late for me.”

“But it would be for me!” said Ruth, dismayed.

“O, I thought you were regarding another.
For you, nobody can decide so well as yourself.
Now go bathe your eyes in rose-water.”

“I have n't any.”

“Then I must kiss them dry. How do
tears taste, Ruth?”

“Salt!”

“Salt, bitter salt, as who should know better.
— Lucky leech that I am! There, dissolve
that powder in something, and wet
your angry lids. That soothes, and prevents
my delay. Kissing is not the end of life,
Ruth.”

“What is?”

“Now you 're to go with me, and dine at
Madame Saratov's.”

And free confession being good for the soul,
Azarian, in his blithest mood that night, looked
many a time at Ruth, who, stung to brilliancy,
so sparkled that he congratulated himself on
his day's work.

Madame Saratov kept Ruth that evening
after they were all gone, spread a little cot
for her in a closet adjoining her own room,
had Isa to comb out her braids, and when they
were both whitely arrayed for the night, sitting
before the fire in embowering arm-chairs,
their feet lost in the pile of crimson cushions,
idly tasting their spicy sangarees, all in a state
of more luxury than Ruth could have contrived
with the money, and that the other contrived
without, just on the indolent somnolent
dreamy verge, in that deep rich light and
warmth, with the late hour tolled out by silver
stroke of distant bells, Madame Saratov read
her the second lesson of the day.

“My dear,” said she, “you wear a ring on

your first finger, which, en passant, nobody
but shoemakers' brides do in Europe.”

“But everybody does in America. Azarian
says it is a national custom here, and so he
likes it. You don't want to wear the ring on
your heart-finger till it is put on never to come
off, you know.”

“You are one sentimental elf. And, moreover,
if you understood yourself, would not
so feel. Love is terribly serious, whereas you
talk as if it were play.”

“Terribly serious,” said Ruth, with a sigh.

“Yes, — a tragedy most often. De vous à
moi, — women must have excitement, so they
find their pleasure in it. They act, these good
women who won't go to the play! It imports
nothing, à ce compte-là, on which finger the
ring is worn, l'index ou l'annulaire.”

“I will tell you a little secret. This is
not my engagement-ring; Azarian never gave
me one. It is Charmian's. She could n't

see which finger it slipt over; so I let it
stay.”

“The Charmian! You knew her, then,
before those pictures, you demure frileuse?”

“Azarian does not like her.”

“Hm! C'est cela, — I see.” And Madame
Saratov did not suspect that her clear sight
was sharpened by a certain portrait of herself
which Azarian had lately sketched and suffered
her to behold half done, without its final
touches of tint and tone, its masque of shapely
smiles and curves and rounded color, and
where, though her acquaintance might not acknowledge
it, she found fearful resemblance.
“But rings are neither here nor there. I intimate
the fact behind, the betrothal. Now
will you tell me as your friend, as one who
has had of experience, who sees that you do
need help, — it pains me the heart, — as to
a kind woman, — why you marry? Is it that
you tire of work, that you want a — what is

this you call it — home, that the families arranged
it, that you find yourself entrapped,
that, as your poet says, returning were as tedious
as laisser aller, — because you are ambitious,
because” —

“O Madame Saratov, because, because I
love him!”

“Pauvre petite!”

There was a world of meaning in the intonation
and the silence. It was beneath Ruth's
dignity to answer its aspersion. She clad
her lip with a smile's disguise.

“You marry him, then, because you love
him. Les roses tombent, les épines restent,”
she hummed. “And he, — does he love
you?”

If Ruth had risen in her little white wrath,
she would have cut a very ridiculous figure.
It was, besides, too late an hour for her to
leave shelter.

“Pardon, mille fois,” said Madame Saratov,

reaching across and putting her warm
hand on the cold and slender arm. “I wish
to make you a difficult service. You will
hate me, détest me, yet you will have me to
thank.”

“I appreciate the wish; but I do not need
the service,” replied Ruth, proudly. “Nobody
can help me,” was what she sighed to
herself.

“Qu'il est difficile to accept! Well, let us
fórget,” said Madame Saratov, tossing her wine
into the grate, where it flashed up the chimney
in a blue fury of fire. “The fact is,”
said she, leaning back once more, and fixing
her eyes on the pale gold of the faded ferns
that crowned the turquoise vase aloft on the
bracket, “I remember me, in my life, of some
men, the very imps and sprites of self, whose
ruin marriage would complete; they were assez
intéressés, assez despotiques, les tyranneaux,
before; from the moment the wife

devoted becomes their slave, their doom is
upon them. I would never adjure a woman
to reject them by her own hope of any happiness,
but by her desire for their salvation.
True marriage, my dear girl,” said she, turning
towards Ruth her blue eyes that glowed
at will, “ennobles, purifies, elevates; but how
can a marriage be true that is all on one side,
— where one loves and the other, tout agreablement,
endures?”

“Madame Saratov, I see what you mean;
yet marriage is the natural condition of maturity;
even a bad and selfish man must therefore
be a better one if he has a wife. If it
were question with me,” said Ruth, with burning
cheeks, “of marrying such a man as those
you knew, I should feel, when the dazzle of
his days was off, how dull and dreary would
they wear away. I would bide my time, I
would marry him, serve him, cheer him, be
his slave!”

“Doubtless you would be happy in some
sort. Women reap the glorious joy of martyrs.
Mais lui?”

“That is beyond my province.”

“Certes! In crossing this slack-rope of
life, you would declare, it suffices to attend
one's own steps.”

“No,” said Ruth, falteringly. “I say that
birth and death and marriage are three great
sacraments, and, partaking them, in neither
has any one the power to interfere or oppose
a will.”

“Fataliste!” exclaimed Madame Saratov,
with a laugh. “Years of discretion, adieu!
What boon to distressed suitors! Love tilts
à outrance, and borrows the weapons of reason!
— But to what end? C'est un cercle
vicieux,” said she, rising, and standing with
her beautiful arm along the black marble of
the mantel. “One is married and done with;
when life shall go to close, the sacrifice it has

demanded may have stripped off all grossness,
and one soars. But he?” said Madame Saratov,
her head upon her hand, and her voice
taking a dreamy tone as she fell into revery.
“One has so served him that he failed to serve
himself; he has attained no height in this life,
and, shuddering out into the blackness, a poor,
pitiful, naked thing at last, what can his pampered,
stifled, degraded soul do but stagger
down, down” —

Ruth rose, too, and her little foot scattered
the crimson cushions with vehemence.

“Madame Saratov, if you play with fire, you
will be burned!” said she.

The lady started. “Qu'as-tu? What have
I done?” she cried. “Trespassed on forbidden
borders? Do you know,” she asked, raising
her eyebrows with sudden thought-dissipating
effect, “how they used to fix the landmarks
in Germany? Take the children to
the spot and box their ears there. You are

not so cruel, ma petite dédaigneuse? Nay,
but I pray thee of thy clemency! that she
would go but to smile, and sonner l'angélus!
Forgiven, then, at last? Let us see how the
night goes à la belle étoile,” said she, drawing
the unwilling Ruth with her to the window,
“Ah! what a mite you are!” and
pulling aside the curtain. “How white the
moonlight wraps the town! It is like an emanation
from all the sleep. How sublime is
this sleep! — the way in which man trusts the
forces to do without him, — the careless reliance
that by daybreak the world will have
rolled round to morning. Striking one. It
seems to me at night as if the stars struck
the hours. How that spire points upward,
and leads the prayer!
And Madame Saratov gave Ruth one of those
lingering kisses which some women have the
assurance to impress, and betook herself to
her prie-dieu, at which, — as Ruth watched
her from a dreamless pillow, — in her own
way, she seemed to find satisfaction.

Night is long at that season, and Ruth did
not slumber; yet as the white light stole into
her closet, she had no desire to rise; she
would have liked to lie forever there in the
soft scented sheets, on the richly-laced pillow;
she folded her feet and her hands, she fancied
herself to be dead. But when, at a much
later hour, Madame Saratov looked in with
a laugh, she lay there at length wrapped in
sleep, white, motionless, and perfect, like the
pallid sculpture on a tomb. It was after a
long dream that she stirred, and Isa stood
beside her with a cup dispersing cordial odors.
“Madame make it for Mamselle,” the maiden
declared, “and she smile to herself all the

time she vas do it.” And with a fresh vigor
coursing through every limb, Ruth performed
her toilette; felt what a different being such
daily trifling care would make her; descending,
found that Madame Saratov, in a fit of
compunction, had sent round for Azarian; and
made her breakfast with them as lightly as if
no cruel purpose had essayed to set its crystal
in the night-time. Then she hastened to give
her hostess a little lesson, — a lesson never
finished, because Azarian had brought to them
a book of his, and from it read aloud, — Maud,
— that fire-opal distilled to melody. After
which he departed upon his engagements, and
she, with the sweet sounds still singing in her
head, hastened home — fearful that she had
been wanting on the night before — to choose
for Madame Saratov her finest boards, her
purest tints, and in a book containing every
charm to illustrate the Garden-Song.