ack waves beat at my weary feet,
And sits at my side the witch of hell.

DID I?

"Giorno d'orrore."

Wheels rolled away in the distance; the corner of a gray cloak fluttered
where the drive turns down hill. From under the fore-wheel of Juggernaut
I struggled back to life with a great sob, that died before it sounded.
I looked about the library for some staff to help me to my feet again.
The porphyry vases were filled with gorgeous boughs, leaves of deep
scarlet, speckled, flushed, gold-spotted, rimmed with green, dashed with
orange, tawny and crimson, blood-sprinkled, faint clear amber; all hues
and combinations of color rioted and revelled in the crowded clusters.
To what hand but hers could so much beauty have gathered? to what eye
but hers did the magnificent secrets of Nature reveal themselves, so
that out of a whole forest her careless straying hand should bring only
its culminating glories, its most perfect results, whether of leaf or
flower or fruit. For in an urn of tintless alabaster, that had lain
centuries in the breathless dust and gloom of an Egyptian tomb, that
hand had set a sheaf of gentians, every fringed cup blue as the wild
river when a noon sky tints it, or as the vaulted azure of a June
midnight on the edge of the Milky Way,--a sheaf no Ceres owned, no
foodfull garner coveted, but the satiating aliment of beauty, fresh as
if God that hour had pronounced them good, and set his sign-manual upon
each delicate tremulous petal, that might have been sapphire, save for
its wistful translucence. And on the teapoy in the window stood two
dainty baskets of clean willow, in which we had that day brought home
chestnuts from the wood;--mine was full of nuts, but they were small and
angular and worm-eaten, as the fruitage of a wet season might well be;
hers scantily freighted, but every nut round, full, and glossy, perfect
from its cruel husk, a specimen, a type of its kind. And on the handle
of the basket hung a little kid glove. I looked at it closely; the
tiny finger-tops and oval nails had left light creases on the delicate
leather, and an indescribable perfume, in which violet predominated,
drove away the vile animal scent that pervades such gloves. I flung it
on the fire.

All about the room lay books that were not of my culling, from the oak
cases, whose every door stood ajar,--novels innumerable,--"The Arabian
Nights," Vaughan's "Silex Scintillans," with a scarlet leaf laid in
against "