Her rippling curls and slim shoulders stood above the shade that enveloped the rest of her form and showed dark against the feeble light of the moon at her back. As he looked she uttered a droll sound—fair counterfeit of the harsh note a mocking-bird speaks to himself before his nightly outburst—and then broke forth in a voice as untrained, but as fresh and joyous and as reckless of reproof or praise, as the bird's:
"'O, the lone, starry hours give me, love,
When still is the beautiful night——'"
At sight of a second and third figure he moved that way, while below the singer's feet sounded a mother's moan: "Ramsey! mon Dieu! my chile! come down from yondeh!"
The girl's eyes stayed in the sky, but one mutinous foot so keenly smote the roof that her nurse, approaching behind, stopped short, and from Hugh came a laugh, a thin, involuntary treble, which caused Ramsey visibly to flinch.
"Ramsey!" entreated her mother again, but——
"Just this one moment, beloved mom-a! Listen, oh, listen, everybody! to my midnight thought!" The rhapsodist struck a stiffer pose and began with all her voice, "Since infinite space is lighted only by the stars! their rush and roll—te rum te riddle, te rum te ree——"
"Ramsey!"
"—Is an eternal starlight!" The girl hugged and kissed her black nurse: "Oh, mammy Joy! is that absurd to you?"
"Ram-zee!" cried the mother. But a toll of the great bell silenced her. Another solemnly followed, and when a third completed the signal to land, the staggering footsteps of the vanished girl dragging old Joy with her in full retreat were a relief to every ear. As madame turned to say good night a last bleat came out of the darkness: