"Was she dark or fair?"
"Dark," he replied. "I did not know it at the time; it was impossible to think whether she was dark or fair while one looked at her, but I remembered afterward. Lil, you remember that picture I sent you from Paris—the picture of the girl with the dark eyes and long, silky hair—not black, but brown in the sunlight, with long lashes shading the eyes, and the lips curved in a half-serious smile as she looks down at the dog fawning at her feet?"
"I remember, Ley. Was she like that?"
"Yes; only alive. Fancy the girl in the picture alive. Fancy yourself the dog she was smiling at! I was the dog!"
"Ley!"
"And she spoke as well as smiled. You can imagine the voice that girl in the picture would have. Soft and musical, but clear as a bell and full of a subtle kind of witchery, half serious, half mockery. It was the voice of the girl I met in the lane this evening."
"Ley! Ley, you have come to make poetry to me to-night. I am very grateful."
"Poetry! It is truth. But you are right; such a face, such a voice would make a poet of the hardest man that lives."
"And you are not hard, Ley! But the girl! Who is she? What is her name?"
"Her name"—he hesitated a moment, and his voice unconsciously grew wonderfully musical—"is Stella—Stella."