Viola cast aside the “tyranny of the dressmaker” and shook out her light hair.  Then she threw herself on the hyacinth bed, looking upwards to the low arching roof.  At that moment the call of the cuckoo, wild, entrancing, came overhead, and she raised her arms with a look of rapture as the slim grey bird dashed through the upper oak branches in pursuit of its mate.  It was a perfect pose for the “Soul of the Wood,” and I begged her to keep it while I rapidly caught the idea and sketched it in roughly in charcoal.

Those happy sunlit hours in the wood, how fast they slipped away!  I was absorbed in the work and completely happy in it, and Viola I believe was equally happy in the delight she knew she was giving me.

We came back very hungry to our tea, and very pleased with ourselves, the sketch, and our successful afternoon.

It was six o’clock, the light was mellowing, and a thrush singing with all its own wonderful passion and rapture on the lawn.  The scent of the lilac, intensely sweet, came in at the window and filled the room.

In the evening we went out and sat under the cherry-tree, watching the stars come out and gleam through its white bloom.

“Sing me the Abendstern,” murmured Viola, leaning her head against me.  “I was a dutiful model all the afternoon, it’s your turn to amuse me now.”

So I sang the Abendstern to her under the cherry-tree, and its white shadow enveloped us both, making her face look very beautiful under it; and when I had finished singing we kissed each other and agreed that the world was a very delightful place as long as there was Wagner’s music in it, and cherry-trees to sit under, and white bloom and stars and lips to kiss.

Between nine and ten, after a very countrified supper we went up to bed in the slanting-roofed room under the thatch, full still of the tender light of a spring evening.

The next day was delicious, too, and the next, but on the fourth we were quite ready to go.  We had drained the cup of joy which that particular place held for us and it had no more to offer.  The cherry-tree pleased us still, but it did not give us the ecstatic thrill of the first view of it.  The lilac scent streamed in, but it did not go to the head and intoxicate us as when we came straight from the air of Waterloo; the thrush gurgled as passionately on the deep green lawn, but the gurgle did not stir the blood.  All was the same, only the strange spell of novelty was gone.

Viola seemed so pleased to be leaving it quite hurt me.  When I went upstairs I found her packing her little handbag with alacrity and singing.

“Are you glad to be going?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said surprised; “are not you?”

“But you have been happy here?” I said with a tone of remonstrance.

“Oh, yes!” she exclaimed; “wildly, intensely happy!  It’s been four days’ enchantment, but then it’s gone now; we can’t get any more out of this place.  We have enjoyed it so much we have drained it, exhausted it; like the bees, we must move on to a fresh flower.”