n to stir. It was pleasant
enough just to lie there and look at her, and let his gaze wander around
her chamber. This white shrine of maidenhood! He had felt its influence
before he was able to understand, and the reverential awe had grown with
his returning strength. How dainty it was, for all its rough board floor
and rude log walls! Even those were as white as the driven snow. The bed
was like the warm, soft breast of a snow-white swan, and its drawn
curtains like folded wings. There were spotless muslin curtains over the
windows, and the little toilet table also was draped in white and strewn
with bits of carved ivory. The whole room showed the same mingling of
luxury and simplicity that was to be seen in the great room below.
These fine ivory carvings, the rare prints and a painting or two on the
rude walls, the alabaster vase on the rude stand,--filled with fresh,
late-blooming flowers,--the costly white fur rug on the floor, the
delicate work basket with its coquettish bows of riband, contrasted
oddly with the other simple things which had evidently been made in the
wilderness by unskilled hands. Yet even those were tasteful and all
painted white, so that the whole was purity, beauty, and exquisiteness.

Yet his gaze quickly turned from the room to her. He knew that she
believed him to be asleep; but it was so pleasant to watch her that he
did not hasten to let her know that he was awake. She was very busy at
the window, with her back to him, and deeply absorbed in something that
she was doing. Moving lightly and swiftly to and fro across the light,
she was working hard, with no more noise than the sunbeams made in
glancing about her slender form. He lay watching her for some time in
dreamy delight, before he saw what it was that she was doing. But
presently he knew that she was making an aeolian harp. The two fragile
bits of vibrant wood to hold the strings were already in place on either
side of the window, just where the upper and lower sash came together.
She was now engaged in carrying the threads of fine silk floss, which
were to form the strings of this simple wind-harp, from one piece of
wood to the other. Back and forth she wove them across the current of
air, moving with swift, noiseless motions of exquisite grace. As the
last fine fibre thus fell into place and was firmly drawn, a soft,
musical sigh breathed through the shadowed room, the very shadow of
music's sweet self.

[Illustration: "She was mak