f Mr. Lyon occasionally, of his white face
and pitiful look of suffering that day, she could not, after all, make
it real or permanently serious. Indeed, she was sure that no emotion
could so master her. And yet she looked forward to Henderson's coming
with a sort of nervous apprehension, amounting almost to dread.

XI

It was the susceptible time of the year for plants, for birds, for
maids: all innocent natural impulses respond to the subtle influence of
spring. One may well gauge his advance in selfishness, worldliness, and
sin by his loss of this annual susceptibility, by the failure of this
sweet appeal to touch his heart. One must be very far gone if some note
of it does not for a moment bring back the tenderest recollections of
the days of joyous innocence.

Even the city, with its mass of stone and brick, rectangles, straight
lines, dust, noise, and fever of activity, is penetrated by this divine
suggestion of the renewal of life. You can scarcely open a window
without letting in a breath of it; the south wind, the twitter of a
sparrow, the rustle of leaves in the squares, the smell of the earth and
of some struggling plant in the area, the note of a distant hand-organ
softened by distance, are begetting a longing for youth, for green
fields, for love. As Carmen walked down the avenue with Mr. Lyon on a
spring morning she almost made herself believe that an unworldly life
with this simple-hearted gentleman--when he should come into his title
and estate--would be more to her liking than the most brilliant success
in place and power with Henderson. Unfortunately the spring influence
also suggested the superior attractiveness of the only man who had
ever taken her shallow fancy. And unfortunately the same note of
nature suggested to Mr. Lyon the contrast of this artificial piece of
loveliness with the domestic life of which he dreamed.

As for Margaret, she opened her heart to the spring without reserve. It
was May. The soft maples had a purple tinge, the chestnuts showed color,
the apple-trees were in bloom (all the air was full of their perfume),
the blackbirds were chattering in convention in the tall oaks, the
bright leaves and the flowering shrubs were alive with the twittering
and singing of darting birds. The soft, fleecy clouds, hovering as over
a world just created, seemed to make near and participant in the scene
the delicate blue of the sky. Margaret--I remember the morning--was
standing on her