And then, in the corner, stood that magical box with the ivory keys, whose strings waited ready night and day—­strange media through which the myriad voices, the inner-sweet thoughts, of the great world-soul found speech, messengers of the stars to the heart, and of the heart to the stars.

Beauty’s songs were very simple.  She got little practice, for her poet only cared to have her sing over and over again the same sweet songs; and perhaps if you had heard her sing ‘Ask nothing more of me, sweet,’ or ‘Darby and Joan,’ you would have understood his indifference to variety.

At last the little feast is quite, quite finished.  Beauty has gone home; her lover still carries her face in his heart as she waved and waved and waved to him from the rattling lighted tramcar; long he sits and sits thinking of her, gazing up at those lonely ancient stars; the air is still bright with her presence, sweet with her thoughts, warm with her kisses, and as he turns to the shut piano, he can still see her white hands on the keys and her girlish face raised in an ecstasy—­Beata Beatrix—­above the music.

  ’O love, my love! if I no more should see
  Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,
    Nor image of thine eyes in any spring—­
  How then should sound upon Life’s darkening slope
  The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
    The wind of Death’s imperishable wing!’

And then ... he would throw himself upon his bed, and burst into tears.

* * * * *

  ’And they are gone:  aye, ages long ago
  These lovers fled away into the storm.’

That seventh-story heaven once more leads a dull life as the office of a ship-chandler, and harsh voices grate the air where Beauty sang.  The books and the flowers and the lovers’ faces are gone for ever.  I suppose the stars are the same, and perhaps they sometimes look down through that roof-window, and wonder what has become of those two lovers who used to look up at them so fearlessly long ago.

But friends of mine who believe in God say that He has given His angels charge concerning that dingy old seventh-floor heaven, and that, for those who have eyes to see, there is no place where a great dream has been dreamed that is not thus watched over by the guardian angels of memory.

For M. Le G., 25 September 1895.

SPRING BY PARCEL POST

  They’ve taken all the spring from the country to the town—­
  Like the butter and the eggs, and the milk from the cow....