“I made no answer; but it was opened, and he took out a sea-green and white velvet carpet, with a scarlet leaf on it, and a piece of sea-green and white brocade for curtains.  Had she sought the world over, she could have found nothing to suit me so well.

“She thought that Verry might have a fancy for some of the old furniture, and that you would accept these in its place.”

“There’s nothing here to match this splendor, and I cannot bear to make a change.  Verry must have them, for she took nothing from me.”

“Just as you please.”

CHAPTER XLI.

“What a hot day!” said Fanny.  “Every door and window is open.  There is not a breath of air.”

“It will be calm all day,” I said.  “We have two or three days like this in a year.  Give me another cup of coffee.  Is it nine yet?”

“Nearly.  I ought to go to Hepsey’s to-day.  She wont be able to leave her bed, the heat weakens her so.”

“Do go.  How still it is!  The shadows of the trees on the Neck reach almost from shore to shore, and there’s a fish-boat motionless.”

“The boat was there when I got up.”

“Everything is blue and yellow, or blue and white.”

“How your hair waves this morning!  It is handsomer than ever.”

I went to the glass with my cup of coffee.  “I look younger in the summer.”

“What’s the use of looking younger here?” she asked gruffly.  “You never see a man.”

“I see Ben coming with Verry, and Manuel behind.”

“Hillo!” cried Ben, pulling up his horses in front of the window.  “We are going on a picnic.  Wont you go?”

“How far?”

“Fifteen or twenty miles.”

“Go on; I had rather imprison the splendid day here.”

“There’s nothing for dinner,” said Fanny.

“The fish-boat may come in, in time.”

“Will three o’clock do for you?  If so, I’ll stay with Hepsey till then.”

“Four will answer?”

She cleared away my breakfast things and left me.  I sat by the window an hour, looking over the water, my thoughts drifting through a golden haze, and then went up to my room and looked out again.  If I turned my eyes inside the walls, I was aware of the yearning, yawning empty void within me, which I did not like.  I sauntered into Verry’s room, to see if any clouds were coming up from the north.  There were none.  The sun had transfixed the sky, and walked through its serene blue, “burning without beams.”  Neither bird nor insect chirped; they were hid from the radiant heat in tree and sod.  I went back again to my own window.  The subtle beauty of these inorganic powers stirred me to mad regret and frantic longing.  I stretched out my arms to embrace the presence which my senses evoked.

It would be better to get a book, I concluded, and hunted up Barry Cornwall’s songs.  With it I would go to the parlor, which was shaded.  I turned the leaves going down, and went in humming: