and it had sprung from its hold, though without
falling out. The strange habit asserted itself; he laid his large hand
upon the cross-bar; the turf at the base yielded, and the tall gate was
drawn partly open.

At that moment, as at the moment whenever he drew or pushed a door or
gate, or looked in at a window, he was thinking of one, the image of
whose face and form had never left his inner vision since the day it had
met him in his life's path and turned him face about from the way of
destruction.

The bird ceased. The cause of the interruption, standing within the
opening, saw before him, much obscured by its own numerous shadows, a
broad, ill-kept, many-flowered garden, among whose untrimmed rose-trees
and tangled vines, and often, also, in its old walks of pounded shell,
the coco-grass and crab-grass had spread riotously, and sturdy weeds
stood up in bloom. He stepped in and drew the gate to after him. There,
very near by, was the clump of jasmine, whose ravishing odor had
tempted him. It stood just beyond a brightly moonlit path, which turned
from him in a curve toward the residence, a little distance to the
right, and escaped the view at a point where it seemed more than likely
a door of the house might open upon it. While he still looked, there
fell upon his ear, from around that curve, a light footstep on the
broken shells,--one only, and then all was for a moment still again. Had
he mistaken? No. The same soft click was repeated nearer by, a pale
glimpse of robes came through the tangle, and then, plainly to view,
appeared an outline--a presence--a form--a spirit--a girl!

From throat to instep she was as white as Cynthia. Something above the
medium height, slender, lithe, her abundant hair rolling in dark, rich
waves back from her brows and down from her crown, and falling in two
heavy plaits beyond her round, broadly girt waist and full to her knees,
a few escaping locks eddying lightly on her graceful neck and her
temples,--her arms, half hid in a snowy mist of sleeve, let down to
guide her spotless skirts free from the dewy touch of the
grass,--straight down the path she came!

Will she stop? Will she turn aside? Will she espy the dark form in the
deep shade of the orange, and, with one piercing scream, wheel and
vanish? She draws near. She approaches the jasmine; she raises her arms,
the sleeves falling like a vapor down to the shoulders; rises upon
tiptoe, and plucks a spray. O Memory! Can it be? _C