From its portal down to the
bay, extended a noble avenue of hardwood trees--oak, walnut and
elm--never planted by the hand of man. Their gracious lives the
woodman had spared, and now, with their outstretched branches,
catching the faint evening breeze, they seemed to breathe a sad
benediction upon the returning youth, who walked hurriedly and
tremblingly beneath them.
As he stepped from their leafy shadow upon the sunset-gilded lawn, he
was startled by an apparition which seemed suddenly to take shape from
a sweet-scented thicket of lilacs now in profuse bloom at the rear of
the house. A dark, lissome creature, beautiful as a young princess,
but a princess in the disguise of a savage, darted past him. So sudden
was the appearance, and so swift the flight of this dusky Diana,
speeding through the blossoming shrubs of spring, that his mind
retained only a general impression of a face, perfect-featured and
olive-tinted, and a form robed in a brilliant and barbarous admixture
of scarlet, yellow, and very dark blue.
But the next moment every sensation and emotion gave way to
overwhelming and profound grief, for his sister Rose, hurrying to meet
him, threw herself into his arms with an abandon of sorrow that seemed
to leave no room for hope.
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