From the dark piazza, where he waited while George summoned some one to receive them, he caught, through the long, open casement, the vista of the parlors, with their glitter and confusion of light drapery and glimpses of bright faces and light forms, and softened hum of voices, as the dancers circled with the music. And through it all, straight down toward him, floating in one of the weird Strauss waltzes, came the princess, swathed in something white, airy, wide-falling. The same dark, unflushed face, the same wide, far-looking eyes, and fixed mouth, the same silky falling hair, but cut short now, and floating back as she moved. It was only for a moment: the perfumed darkness that seemed to throb with a sudden life of its own, the great, slow, summer stars above him, the wailing, passionate music that came trembling out among the heavy dew-wet foliage, the dark, calm earth about him, and the light and color and giddy motion that filled the gleaming square before him, struck in on his senses with staggering force; and then she swayed out of his sight, and Mrs. Morris came forward with words of cheer and welcome. That night, lying sleepless after the music was hushed and the wheels had done rolling away from the door, as if material enough for all fever fancies had not been given, backward and forward through the corridor a woman's garments trailed with light rustle, and a low voice hummed brokenly the waltz he had heard. Ceasing by and by in a murmur of girls' voices, and the old-remembered air, sung softly: 'For men must work and women must weep, Though storms be sudden and waters deep.' After that many days went by unmarked. His wound, aggravated by fatigue, racked him with renewed pain; and when that was over, vitality was at too low an ebb for anything but the most passive quiet. Before listless, unnoting eyes drifted the crystal mornings, the golden hours steeped deep in summer languors, the miracles of sun-settings and star-filled holy nights. From his window he saw and heard always the ocean, blue and calm, lapping the shore with dreamy ripple in bright days--driving ghostly swirls of spray and fog clown the beach in stormy, gray ones. The house itself seemed set in the deepest haunt of summertime. Great trees, draped in the fullest growth of the year, rippled waves of green high about it. All day long the leaf sounds and leaf shadows came drifting in at the windows. Perfectest hush and quiet wrapped its occasional faint strains of music, or chime of voices came up to him, but did not break the silence. A place for a well soul to find its full stature, for a tired or sick one to gather again its lost forces. And by slow degrees the life held at first with so feeble a grasp came back to him.