’The clouds, like grim black faces, come and go;
    One tall tree stretches up against the sky;
   It lets the rain through, like a trembling hand
    Pressing thin fingers on a watery eye. 
   The moon came, but shrank back, like a young girl
    Who has burst in upon funereal sadness;
   One star came—­Cleopatra-like, the Night
    Swallowed this one pearl in a fit of madness!’

“Well, Felix, you are a truthful boy, and I can trust you!”

“I never heard the poetry before, and I tell you, Edna, the idea is just as much mine as it is Mr. Biggs’s!”

“I believe you.  Such coincidences are rare, and people are very loath to admit the possibility; but that they do occasionally occur, I have no doubt.  Perhaps some day when you write a noble poem, and become a shining light in literature, you may tell this circumstance to the world; and bid it beware how it idly throws the charge of plagiarism against the set teeth of earnest, honest workers.”

“Edna, I look at my twisted feet sometimes, and I feel thankful that it is my body, not my mind, that is deformed.  If I am ever able to tell the world anything, it will be how much I owe you; for I trace all holy thoughts and pretty ideas to you and your music and your writings.”

They sat there awhile in silence, watching heavy masses of cloud darken the sea and sky; and then Felix lifted his face from Edna’s shoulder, and asked timidly: 

“Did you send Sir Roger away?”

“He goes to Europe to-morrow, I believe.”

“Poor Sir Roger!  I am sorry for him.  I told mamma you never thought of him; that you loved nothing but books and flowers and music.”

“How do you know that?”

“I have watched you, and when he was with you I never saw that great shining light in your eyes, or that strange moving of your lower lip, that always shows me when you are really glad; as you were that Sunday when the music was so grand; or that rainy morning when we saw the pictures of the ‘Two Marys at the Sepulchre.’  I almost hated poor Sir Roger, because I was afraid he might take you to England, and then, what would have become of me?  Oh! the world seems so different, so beautiful, so peaceful, as long as I have you with me.  Everybody praises you, and is proud of you, but nobody loves you, as I do.”

He took her hand, passed it over his cheek and forehead, and kissed it tenderly.

“Felix, do you feel at all sleepy?”

“Not at all.  Tell me something more about the animalcula that cause the phosphorescence yonder—­making the top of each wave look like a fringe of fire.  It is true that they are little round things that look like jelly—­so small that it takes one hundred and seventy, all in a row, to make an inch; and that a wineglass can hold millions of them?”

“I do not feel well enough to-night to talk about animalcula.  I am afraid I shall have one of those terrible attacks I had last winter.  Felix, please don’t go to bed for a while at least; and if you hear me call, come to me quickly.  I must write a letter before I sleep.  Sit here, will you, till I come back?”