olving fitfully into warm rain, and very melancholy.
I was to take the late train to Agen with the two girls. And she and I,
when all was ready, were to have the afternoon together. Of course we
must have it serene, as if no parting were to close it. All traces of
departure, of packing, were cleared away at her bidding, and when they
had carried her on to her sofa, and placed by its side the little table
with our books, and also my chair, she bade the dear Southern maids
light a fine blaze of vine stumps, and fill all the jars with fresh
roses--china roses, so vivid, surely none have ever smelt so sweet and
poignant. We amused ourselves, a little sadly, burning some olive and
myrtle branches I had brought for her from Corsica, and watching their
frail silver twigs and leaves turn to embers and fall in fireworks of
sparks and a smoke of incense. And we read together in one of my books
(alas! that book has just come back this very same day, sent by her
daughter), and looked up at the loose grey clouds suffused with rose and
orange as the day drew to its end. Then the children shouted from below
that the carriage was there, that I must go. We closed the books,
marking the place, and I broke a rose from the nosegay on the
fireplace. And we said farewell.

Thus have we remained, she and I. With the mild autumn day drawing to an
end outside; and within, the fresh roses, the bright fire she had asked
for; remained reading our books, watching those dried leaves turn to
showers of sparks and smoke of incense. She and I, united beyond all
power of death to part, in the loving belief that, even like that
afternoon of packing up and bidding adieu, and rain and early twilight,
life also should be made serene and leisurely, and simple and sweet, and
akin to eternity.

And now I am going to put those volumes she and I had read together, on
my own shelves, here in this house she never entered; and to correct the
proofs of this new little book, which should have been hers, nay, rather
_is_, and which is also, my dear Madame Blanc, for that reason, yours.

I am, meanwhile, your grateful and affectionate friend,

VERNON LEE.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

THE GARDEN OF LIFE--INTRODUCTORY

IN PRAISE OF GOVERNESSES

ON GOING TO THE PLAY

READING BOOKS

HEARING MUSIC

RECEIVING LETTERS

NEW FRIENDS AND OLD

OTHER FRIENDSHIPS

A HOTEL SITTING-ROOM

IN PRAISE OF COURTSHIP

KNOWING ONE'S MIND

AGAINST TALKING

IN