"The little boy." "The little boy!" she gave a kind of bright cry, and herself came to the door. She opened it, and standing yet there, said, with the loveliest manner, "You will not quarrel with this little thing! But forgive her, and pray come in. It was kind to come all the way up those stairs, which are steep as the road to fame." "Is that steep?" I asked, for her style instantly excited me to a rallying mood. "Some say so," she replied,--"those who seek it. But come and rest." And she led me by her flower-soft finger-tips to a sofa, also in the light, as in the room I had quitted, and bathed in airs that floated above the gardens, and downwards from the heavens into that window also open. A curtain was drawn across the alcove at the end, and between us and its folds of green, standing out most gracefully, was a beautiful harp; there were also more books than I had seen in a sitting-room since I left my Davy, and I concluded they had been retrieved from her lost father's library. But upon the whole room there was an atmosphere thrown neither from the gleaming harp nor illustrating volumes; and as my eyes rested upon her, after roving everywhere else, I could only wonder I had ever looked away. Her very dress was such as would have become no other, and was that which she herself invested with its charm. She wore a dark-blue muslin, darker than the summer heaven, but of the self-same hue; this robe was worn loosely, was laced in front over a white bodice. Upon those folds was flung a shawl of some dense rose-color and an oriental texture, and again over that shady brilliance fell the long hair, velvet-soft, and darker than the pine-trees in the twilight. The same unearthly hue slept in the azure-emerald of her divinely moulded eyes, mild and liquid as orbed stars, and just as superhuman. The hair, thus loosened, swept over her shoulder into her lap. There was not upon its stream the merest ripple,--it was straight as long; and had it not been so fine, must have wearied with its weight a head so small as hers. "What magnificent hair you have!" said I. "It seems I was determined to make of it a spectacle. If I had known you were coming, I should have put it out of the way; but whenever I am lazy or tired, I like to play with it. The Chevalier calls it my rosary." I was at home directly. "The Chevalier! Oh! have you seen him since that day?" "Four, five, six times." "And I have not seen him once." "You shall see him eight, nine, ten times. Never mind! He comes to see me, you know, out of that kindness whose prettiest name is charity." "Where is he now?" I inquired, impatient of that remark of hers. "Now? I do not know. He has been away a fortnight, conducting everywhere. Have you not heard?" "No,--what?" "Of the Mer de Glace overture and accompaniments?" "I have not heard a word." She took hold of her hair and stroked it impatiently; still, there was such sweetness in her accent as made me doubt she was angry.