"How few poets know how to handle color!" said Mortimer. "Azure, red, orange, and all poetic hues are mixed up in their pictures like a shattered rain-bow! But how artist-like is Keats! His famous window scene has not been surpassed: "A casement high and triple-arched there was, All garlanded with carven imageries Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass, And diamonded with panes of quaint device, _Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes_, _As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings_; And in the midst, 'mong thousand heraldries, _And twilight saints and dim emblazonings_, _A shielded 'scutcheon blush'd with blood of queens and kings_. "Full on this casement shone the wintry moon, And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon: _Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together pressed_, _And on her silver cross soft amethyst_, _And on her hair a glory, like a saint_: She seemed a splendid angel, newly dressed, Save wings, for heaven!" "Is it not exquisite?" asked Mortimer, looking in Daisy's face. She nodded assent. Mortimer fixed his eyes on a pearl necklace which gently clasped the girl's neck, and started. The cross undulated on her bosom, which rose and fell like two full white roses in the wind. "Where did you get that?" and Mortimer laid his hand on her arm nervously. "It was a freak," said Daisy, blushing. "Are you angry?" "Not angry, Daisy." "But you look so." "Do I? I am not. I grow unhappy when I see that necklace." "It was Bell's, then?" "Yes--no--don't ask me, Daisy." "Why?" A shadow came over Mortimer's face. That morning Daisy had been tempted to open the morocco case, and a desire to clasp the white necklace on her neck became irresistible. Something drew her to it, and the same feeling of mystery and longing which stole on her when she first held the circlet in her hand while Mortimer was sleeping, overpowered her. Almost unconsciously she fastened the gold clasp, and when the little cross sunk down on her bosom, her heart grew lighter, and she went over the house singing like a canary. She wore it the whole day, pausing at times in her household duties to admire the pearls. After a while she forgot its existence, and her intention to replace it before Mortimer returned. When Mortimer's eye caught sight of the necklace, Daisy was much embarrassed, for she could, in no intelligible way, account for having taken it. Mortimer was equally pained. He had unwillingly become possessed of the ornament, and saw no means by which he could return it to Mr. Flint without acknowledging that he had also taken the _check_. He dreaded to make so humiliating a confession, and, perhaps, he stood a little in fear of Mr. Flint's anger. The circumstance had caused him many moments of anxiety, and an unpleasant thought came to him, as he saw the purloined necklace on Daisy's innocent bosom.