that was all.  The twilight deepened as she read, until the words before her began to play hide and seek; they got worse and worse, until she was tired of catching at them; and when at last she stopped for a moment, they were all gone like a troop of fairies, and her reading was ended.  She closed the book, and was soon dreaming awake; and the twilight world was the globe in which the dream-fishes came and went—­now swelling up strange and near, now sinking away into the curious distance.

Her mood was broken by the sound of hoofs, which she almost immediately recognized as those of the doctor’s red horse—­great hoofs falling at the end of long straight-flung steps.  Her heart began to beat violently, and confident in the protection of the gathering night, she rose and looked cautiously out toward the side on which was the approach.  In a few moments, round the furthest visible corner, and past the gate in the garden-wall, swung a huge shadowy form—­gigantic in the dusk.  She drew back her head, but ere she could shape her mind to retreat from the window, the solid gloom hurled itself thundering past, and she stood trembling and lonely, with the ebb of Ruber’s paces in her ears—­and in her hand a letter.  In a minute she came to herself, closed her window, drew down the blind, lighted a candle, set it on the window-sill, and opened the letter.  It contained these verses, and nothing more:—­

  My morning rose in laughter—­
    A gold and azure day. 
  Dull clouds came trooping after,
    Livid, and sullen gray.

  At noon, the rain did batter,
    And it thundered like a hell: 
  I sighed, it is no matter,
    At night I shall sleep as well.

  But I longed with a madness tender
    For an evening like the morn,
  That my day might die in splendor,
    Not folded in mist forlorn—­

  Die like a tone elysian,
    Like a bee in a cactus-flower,
  Like a day-surprised vision,
    Like a wind in a summer shower.

  Through the vaulted clouds about me
    Broke trembling an azure space: 
  Was it a dream to flout me—­
    Or was it a perfect face?

  The sky and the face together
    Are gone, and the wind blows fell. 
  But what matters a dream or the weather? 
    At night it will all be well.

  For the day of life and labor,
    Of ecstasy and pain,
  Is only a beaten tabor,
    And I shall not dream again.

  But as the old Night steals o’er me,
    Deepening till all is dead,
  I shall see thee still before me
    Stand with averted head.

  And I shall think, Ah sorrow! 
    The might that never was may!
  The night that has no morrow! 
    And the sunset all in gray!

Juliet laid her head on her hands and wept.