As we drove away through the shadow, The candle she held in the door, From rain-varnished tree-trunk to tree-trunk Flashed fainter, and flashed no more,-- Flashed fainter and wholly faded Before we had passed the wood; But the light of the face behind it Went with me and stayed for good. The vision of scarce a moment, And hardly marked at the time, It comes unbidden to haunt me, Like a scrap of ballad-rhyme. Had she beauty? Well, not what they call so: You may find a thousand as fair, And yet there's her face in my memory, With no special right to be there. As I sit sometimes in the twilight, And call back to life in the coals Old faces and hopes and fancies Long buried,--good rest to their souls!-- Her face shines out of the embers; I see her holding the light, And hear the crunch of the gravel And the sweep of the rain that night. 'Tis a face that can never grow older, That never can part with its gleam; 'Tis a gracious possession forever, For what is it all but a dream? AN ARTIST'S DREAM. When I reached Kenmure's house, one August evening, it was rather a disappointment to find that he and his charming Laura had absented themselves for twenty-four hours. I had not seen them since their marriage; my admiration for his varied genius and her unvarying grace was at its height, and I was really annoyed at the delay. My fair cousin, with her usual exact housekeeping, had prepared everything for her guest, and then bequeathed me, as she wrote, to Janet and baby Marian. It was a pleasant arrangement, for between baby Marian and me there existed a species of passion, I might almost say of betrothal, ever since that little three-year-old sunbeam had blessed my mother's house by lingering awhile in it, six months before. Still I went to bed disappointed, though the delightful windows of the chamber looked out upon the glimmering bay, and the swinging lanterns at the yard-arms of the frigates shone like some softer constellation beneath the brilliant sky. The house was so close upon the water that the cool waves seemed to plash deliciously against its very basement; and it was a comfort to think that, if there were no adequate human greetings that night, there would be plenty in the morning, since Marian would inevitably be pulling my eyelids apart before sunrise.