The stranger, well within the shade of the clustering vines, made no reply.
"Say," cried she, from the porch door; "set down and wait for supper, won't you?"
Surprised at the silence, accustomed as she was to the garrulity of country neighbours, she stepped out into the piazza. A beautiful woman she, of forty years, whose fine face seemed now set in an aureole of sunbeams. The stranger took off his hat and stooped somewhat towards her; there was something familiar in the gesture, which set the wild blood throbbing at her heart-strings as though the past twenty years had been a dream.
"Kitty, my dear love, Kitty."
The farm men came singing up the lane, the heavy waggons grinding slowly along in the sunshine. All this, the everyday life, was now the dream, and they, Kitty and Elihu, had met in the meadow lands of the earthly Paradise.
A MEMORY.
How much of precious joy, that leaves no pain,
Lives in the simple memory of a face
Once seen, and only for a little space,
And never after to be seen again:
A face as fair as, on an altar pane,
A pictured window in some holy place—
The glowing lineaments of immortal grace,
In many a vague ideal sought in vain.
Such face was yours, and such the joy to me,
Who saw you once, once only, and by chance,
And cherished evermore in memory
The noble beauty of your countenance—
The poet's natural language in your looks,
Sweet as the wondrous sweetness of your books.
George Cotterell.