“If,” he continued, “I had been inclined to apply any of my discoveries to the work which I superintended, he was willing, and his partners were willing, to forgive any interference of that sort, of mine, in affairs which were strictly their own, as long as the discoveries seemed of so astonishing a nature.”

I am not able to give all our conversation.  I could only say to my employer, that this was no act of mine, though I felt very sure that the sunshine which astonished them in Messrs. Gobelin’s carpet-store was the very sunbeam that shone through the window of the factory on the 27th of May, that summer.  When he asked me what chemical preparation could insure a repetition of the same wonderful effect, I could only say, that, if sunlight were let in upon all the machines, through all the windows of the establishment, a similar effect might be produced.  He stared at me.  Our large and substantial mill was overshadowed by the high stone-walls of the rival company.  It had taken a large amount of capital to raise our own walls; it would take a still larger to induce our neighbors to remove theirs.  So we parted,—­my employer evidently thinking that I was keeping something behind, waiting to make my profit on a discovery so interesting to him.  He called me back to tell me, that, after working so long under his employ, he hoped I should never be induced by higher wages or other proffers to leave for any rival establishment.

I was not left long in quiet.  I received a summons to Boston.  Mr. Stuart, the millionnaire, had bought the wonderful carpet at an immense price.  He had visited our agent himself, had invited the designer to dinner, and now would not be satisfied until I had made him a visit in Boston.

I went to his house.  I passed up through broad stairways, and over carpets such as I had never trod nor woven.  I should have liked to linger and satisfy my eyes with looking at the walls decorated with paintings, and at the statuary, which seemed to beckon to me like moving figures.  But I passed on to the room where Mr. Stuart and his friends awaited me.  Here the first thing that struck me was the glowing carpet across which I must tread.  It was lying in an oval saloon, which had been built, they told me, for the carpet itself.  The light was admitted only from the ceiling, which was so decorated that no clear sunlight could penetrate it; but down below the sunbeams lay flickering in the meadow of leaves, and shed a warm glow over the whole room.

But my eyes directly took in many things besides the flowery ground beneath me.  At one end of the room stood a colossal bust of Juno, smiling grandly and imperturbably, as if she were looking out from the great far-away past.  I think this would have held my looks and my attention completely, but that Mr. Stuart must introduce me to his friends.  So I turned my glance away; but it was drawn directly towards a picture which hung before me,—­a face that drove away all recollection of the colossal goddess.  The golden hair was parted over a broad brow; from the gentle, dreamy eyes there came a soft, penetrating glance, and a vagueness as of fancy rested over the whole face.  I scarcely heard a word that was spoken to me as I looked upon this new charm, and I could hardly find answers for the questions that surrounded me.