aunt, had been married
To a dreary old Count, who had sullenly died,
With no claim on her tears--she had wept as a bride.
Said Lord Alfred, "Your mistress expects me."

The crone
Oped the drawing-room door, and there left him alone.

V.

O'er the soft atmosphere of this temple of grace
Rested silence and perfume. No sound reach'd the place.
In the white curtains waver'd the delicate shade
Of the heaving acacias, through which the breeze play'd.
O'er the smooth wooden floor, polished dark as a glass,
Fragrant white Indian matting allowed you to pass.
In light olive baskets, by window and door,
Some hung from the ceiling, some crowding the floor,
Rich wild flowers pluck'd by Lucile from the hill,
Seem'd the room with their passionate presence to fill:
Blue aconite, hid in white roses, reposed;
The deep belladonna its vermeil disclosed;
And the frail saponaire, and the tender blue-bell,
And the purple valerian,--each child of the fell
And the solitude flourish'd, fed fair from the source
Of waters the huntsman scarce heeds in his course
Where the chamois and izard, with delicate hoof,
Pause or flit through the pinnacled silence aloof.

VI.

Here you felt, by the sense of its beauty reposed,
That you stood in a shrine of sweet thoughts. Half unclosed
In the light slept the flowers; all was pure and at rest;
All peaceful; all modest; all seem'd self-possess'd,
And aware of the silence. No vestige nor trace
Of a young woman's coquetry troubled the place.
He stood by the window. A cloud pass'd the sun.
A light breeze uplifted the leaves, one by one.
Just then Lucile enter'd the room, undiscern'd
By Lord Alfred, whose face to the window was turned,
In a strange revery.
The time was, when Lucile,
In beholding that man, could not help but reveal
The rapture, the fear, which wrench'd out every nerve
In the heart of the girl from the woman's reserve.
And now--she gazed at him, calm, smiling,--perchance
Indifferent.

VII.

Indifferently turning his glance,
Alfred Vargrave encounter'd that gaze unaware.
O'er a bodice snow-white stream'd her soft dusky hair:
A rose-bud half blown in her hand; i