So far from thinking it hard to conjure up matter upon which to base her tale, the difficulty seemed to lie in the fact that she must perforce write only one at a time, if she wished to be conscientious and systematic. All through the washing of her face and hands, and the brushing of her hair, mechanically performed, her head was teeming with all manner of stirring incidents, which rose up in her imagination, refusing to be placed in any nice order of sequence; inconsistent with one another; contending together—obviously "copy" for many stories of widely different natures.
"And then there is my style," the would-be authoress reflected, as she sank down at length among the pillows. "I wonder what my style will be: whether I have to find one—to settle upon one of many—or whether a particular one will come to me of itself."
And this was as far as Hazel got that first night.
CHAPTER IX
Hazel was awakened next morning by an unaccustomed sound that seemed for some time to have penetrated her sleep-wrapped senses, without rousing them to full consciousness. She lay still, and listened with all her ears; but there was no renewal of the disturbance, and she was about to compose herself to sleep—the clock upon the mantel-shelf telling her she might do so for another half-hour—when the unwonted strains began again. They were not those of a donkey braying, nor of a horse whinnying, nor of a cock crowing, but of a young man singing.
It was not a very tuneful performance, but it was most fervently and expressively rendered; and Hazel, as it dawned upon her that she was the subject of the morning serenade, hearkened with very mixed emotions.
"I suppose he considers it serenading," she said to herself; and she experienced a feeling of importance, intermingled with awe. "I thought they had gone out of fashion," she meditated. "Certainly they have in England: I suppose Digby's continental trips have given him foreign notions."
I stand at your window sighing
As the weary hours go by,
And the time is slowly dying
"Horribly," Hazel's reflections broke in. "Why don't you hurry up, or get some one to mark it for you?"
That once too quick did fly.