silence and rest were all
he could now endure. But by-and-by he shook his wings and was off again,
and nobody that saw him could tell where in the sea of air the voyager
found his last island of refreshment.

IV.

On Miss Edgar's return to her room, as she opened the door, a flood of
fragrance rolled upon her. She put up her hand in hasty gesture, as if
to rebuke or resist it, while a shade of displeasure crossed her face.
On the piano lay a bouquet of flowers, richest in hue and fragrance that
garden or hot-house knows. All the season's splendor seemed concentrated
within those narrow bounds.

The gas was already burning from a single jet, which she approached
without observing the unusual fact, for the organist was accustomed in
this room herself to control light and darkness.

One glance only was needed to convince her through what avenue this
flowery gift had come.

Such gifts were offerings of more than common significance. Their
renewal at this day seemed to disturb the organist as she turned the
bouquet slowly in her hand and perceived how the old arrangement had
been adhered to, from passion-flower to camellia, whitest white lily,
and most delicate of roses; moss and vine-tendril, jessamine,
heliotrope, violet, ivy: it was a work of Art consummating that of
Nature, and complete.

With the bouquet in her hand, she went and sat down at the window. It
was easy to see, by the changes of countenance, that she was fast
assuming the reins of a resolution. Would the door of the organist of
St. Peter's never open but to guests ethereal as these? The question was
somehow asked, and she could not choose but hear it.

If he who sent the gift had pondered it, no less did she. And for
result, at an early hour the next morning, the lady who had lived her
life in sovereign independence and an almost absolute solitude, week
after week these many months here in H----, was on her way to the studio
of Adam von Gelhorn.

As to the lady, what image has the reader conjured up to fancy? Any
vision? She was the shadow of a woman. Rachel, in her last days, not
_more_ ethereal. Two pale-faced, blue-eyed women could not be more
dissimilar than the organist and her soprano. For the organist plainly
was herself, with merely an abatement, that might have risen from
anxiety, work, or study; whatever her disturbance, she made no
exhibition of it; it was always a tranquil face, and no storms or wrecks
were discoverable in those deep