Eustasia put no more questions; but curiously enough, began crooning to herself, in a low voice, some wild air. Her eyes flashed and her face became illuminated; and as she sang, she drew her limp hand to and fro in the water, among the flowers, keeping time to the measure. All her sorrow seemed to leave her, giving place to a dreamy pleasure. There was something feline and almost forbidding in her manner. She looked like a pythoness intoning oracles:
Dark eyes aswim with sibylline desire,
And vagrant locks of amber!
Her voice was clear though subdued, resembling, to some extent, the purring of a cat.
‘What are you singing, Eustasia?’
‘“In lilac time when blue birds sing,” Salem.’
‘What a queer girl you are!’ cried the Professor, not without a certain wondering admiration. ‘I declare I sometimes feel afraid of you. Anyone could see with half an eye that we were brother and sister only on one side of the family. Your mother was a remarkable woman, like yourself. Father used to say sometimes he’d married a ghost-seer; and it might have been, for she hailed from the Highlands of Scotland. At any rate, you inherit her gift.’
Eustasia ceased her singing, and laughed again—this time with a low, self satisfied gladness.
‘It’s all I do inherit, brother Salem,’ she said; adding, in a low voice, as if to herself, ‘But it’s something, after all.’
‘Something!’ cried the Professor. ‘It’s a Divine privilege, that’s what it is! To think that when you like you can close your eyes, see the mystical coming and going of cosmic forces, and, as the sublime Bard expresses it,