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... “The spread
Of orange lustre through these azure spheres Where little clouds lie still like flocks of sheep, Or vessels sailing in God’s other deep.” |
In that wondrous and magical after-glow which tenderly hovers over the darkening face of the dying day, like the strange, spectral smile that only sheds its cold, supernatural light on lips twelve hours dead, Salome’s fair face and graceful pose was as softly defined against the western sky as some nimbussed saint or madonna on the golden background of old Byzantine pictures. Her small straw hat, wreathed with scarlet poppies, lay at her feet; and around her shoulders she had closely folded a bright plaid flannel cloak, which tinted her complexion with its ruddy hues, as firelight flushes the olive portraits that stare at it from surrounding walls, and the braided black hair and large hazel eyes showed every brown tint and topaz gleam.
Leaning her arms on the top of her music-book, she rested her chin upon them, and sat looking seaward, singing a difficult passage, in the midst of which her nimble voice tripped on an E flat, and, missing the staccato step, rolled helplessly down in a legato flood of melody; whereupon, with an impatient grimace she shut her eyes, weary of watching the wave-shimmer 107 that almost dazzled her. After a few seconds, when she opened them, there stood just on the edge of the cliff, as if poised in air, a woman whose face and form were as sharply cut in profile on the azure sea and sky as white cameo features on black agate grounds.
Around the tall figure shining folds of silver poplin hung heavy and statuesque, and over the shoulders a blue crape shawl was held by a beautiful blue-veined hand, where a sapphire asp kept guard; while a cluster of double violets fastened behind one shell-like ear breathed their perfume among glossy bands of gray hair.
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“There was no color in the quiet mouth, Nor fulness; yet it had a ghostly grace, Pathetically pale,” |
and wan, and woful—the still face turned seaward, fronting a round white moon that was lifting its full disk out of the line where air and water met—she stood motionless.
Lifting her head, Salome shivered involuntarily, and grew a shade paler as she breathlessly watched the apparition, expecting that it would fade into blue air or float down and mingle with the waters that gave it birth. But there was no wavering mistiness about the shining drapery; and, presently, when she turned and came forward, the orphan, despite her sneers at superstition, felt the hair creep and rise on her temples, and, springing to her feet, they faced each other. As the stranger advanced, Salome unconsciously retreated a few steps, and exclaimed,—
“Gray-eyed, gray-haired, gray-clad, gray-faced, and rising out of that gray sea, I suppose I have at last met the gray ghost that people tell me haunts old ‘Solitude.’ But how came such a young face under that drift of white hair? If all ghosts have such finely carved, delicate noses and chins, such oval cheeks and pretty brows, most of us here in the flesh might thank fortune for a chance to ‘shuffle off this mortal coil.’ Say, are you the troubled evil spirit that haunts ‘Solitude’?”
“I am.”