stiller and sweeter than light or
air, little Marian stood on the threshold. She had been in the fields
with Janet, who had woven for her breeze-blown hair a wreath of the
wild gerardia blossoms, whose purple beauty had reminded the good
Scotchwoman of her own native heather. In her arms the child bore, like
a little gleaner, a great sheaf of graceful golden-rod, as large as her
grasp could bear. In all the artist's visions he had seen nothing so
aerial, so lovely; in all his passionate portraitures of his idol, he
had delineated nothing so like to her. Marian's cheeks mantled with
rich and wine-like tints, her hair took a halo from the sunbeams, her
lips parted over the little, milk-white teeth; she looked at us with
her mother's eyes. I turned to Kenmure to see if he could resist the
influence.

He scarcely gave her a glance. "Go, Marian," he said, not
impatiently,--for he was too thoroughly courteous ever to be
ungracious, even to a child,--but with a steady indifference that cut
me with more pain than if he had struck her.

The sun dropped behind the horizon, the halo faded from the shining
hair and every ray of light from the childish face. There came in its
place that deep, wondering sadness which is more touching than any
maturer sorrow,--just as a child's illness melts our hearts more than
that of man or woman, it seems so premature and so plaintive. She
turned away; it was the very first time I had ever seen the little face
drawn down, or the tears gathering in the eyes. By some kind
providence, the mother, coming in flushed and beautiful with walking,
met Marian on the piazza, and caught the little thing in her arms with
unwonted tenderness. It was enough for the elastic child. After one
moment of such bliss she could go to Janet, go anywhere; and when the
same graceful presence came in to us in the studio, we also could ask
no more.

We had music and moonlight, and were happy. The atmosphere seemed more
human, less unreal. Going up stairs at last, I looked in at the
nursery, and found my pet rather flushed, and I fancied that she
stirred uneasily. It passed, whatever it was; for next morning she came
in to wake me, looking, as usual, as if a new heaven and earth had been
coined purposely for her since she went to sleep. We had our usual long
and important discourse,--this time tending to protracted narrative, of
the Mother-Goose description,--until, if it had been possible for any
human being to be late