"You have three passions, music, flowers, and poetry," said he, with a smile that seemed to mock the extravagance of my language, "which is the regal one, the passion of passions?"
"I can hardly imagine the existence of one without the other," I answered, "their harmony is so entire; flowers are silent poetry, and poetry is written music."
"And music?" he asked.
"Is the breath of heaven, the language of angels. As the voice of Echo lingered in the woods, where she loved to wander, when her beauteous frame had vanished, so music remains to show the angel nature we have lost."
I blushed at having said so much, but the triune passion warmed my soul.
"Gabriella is a poetess herself," said Edith, "and may well speak of the magic of numbers. She has a portfolio, filled with papers written, like Ezekiel's scroll, within and without. I wish you would let me get it, Gabriella,—do."
"Impossible!" I answered, "I never wrote but one poem for exhibition, and the experience of that hour was sufficient for a lifetime."
"You were but a child then, Gabriella. Mr. Regulus would give it a very different reception now, I know he would," said Edith.
"If it is a child's story, will you not relate it?" asked Ernest; "you have excited my curiosity."
"Curiosity, brother, I thought you possessed none."