erest momentary glimpse--

". . . one flash
Of the pale snow-pure cheek and black bright tresses,
Blacker than all except the black eyelash;
I wonder she contrives those lids no dresses,
So strict was she the veil
Should cover close her pale
Pure cheeks--a bride to look at and scarce touch,
Scarce touch, remember, Jules! For are not such
Used to be tended, flower-like, every feature,
As if one's breath would fray the lily of a creature?

* * * * *

How will she ever grant her Jules a bliss
So startling as her real first infant kiss?
Oh, no--not envy, this!"

For, recalling the virgin dimness of that apparition, the slender gamut
of that exquisite reserve, the little work-girl has a moment's pang of
pity for herself, who has to trip along the streets "all but naked to
the knee."

"Whiteness in us were wonderful indeed,"

she cries, who is pure gold if not pure whiteness, and in an instant
shows herself to be at any rate pure innocence. It could not be envy,
she argues, which pierced her as she thought of that immaculate
girlhood--

". . . for if you gave me
Leave to take or to refuse,
In earnest, do you think I'd choose
That sort of new love to enslave me?
Mine should have lapped me round from the beginning;
As little fear of losing it as winning:
Lovers grow cold, men learn to hate their wives,
And only parents' love can last our lives."

And she turns, thus rejecting the new love, to the "Son and Mother,
gentle pair," who commune at evening in the turret: what prevents her
being Luigi?

"Let me be Luigi! If I only knew
What was my mother's face--my father, too!"

For Pippa has never seen either, knows not who either was, nor whence
each came. And just because, thus ignorant, she cannot truly figure to
herself such love, she now rejects in turn this third pretending--

"Nay, if you come to that, best love of all
Is God's;"

--and she will be Monsignor! To-night he will bless the home of his dead
brother, and God will bless in turn

"That heart which beats, those eyes which mildly burn
With love for all men! I, to-night at least,
Would be that holy and beloved priest."

Now all the weighing of love with love is over; she has chosen, and
already has the proof of having chosen rightly