"I ran up-stairs, threw a black lace shawl over my head, Spanish mantilla fashion, and joined him. It was sunset, and all the beautiful landscape lay wrapped in a veil of purplish mist, through which trembled a soft golden glow that brightened all the west, and shimmered through the tree-tops like flashes of fire. "We walked on through the delicious atmosphere, to which the perfume of innumerable flowers gave forth their sweetness, as they brightened under the soft dews that had just began to fall. "Unconsciously, we turned out of the oak-avenue and walked toward a pretty pond, or miniature lake, which lay to our right, sheltered by one live-oak and a cluster of magnolia-trees, from which the blossoms brought to me that morning had been cut. A shrub-like species of the magnolia grew around the pond, hedging it in with great white blossoms, and the sedgy borders were aglow with wild flowers. It was not yet time for the water-lilies to be in blossom, but in some places their large green pads covered the lake with patches of glossy greenness, while a light wind rippled through them, stirring the waters like ridges of diamonds between the trembling leaves. "How beautiful it was! The birds were no longer musical, but we watched them fluttering through the leaves and settling down in safe places among the rushes, while the sweet stillness of the closing day fell upon them. "My hand rested on the arm of our guest; he was talking earnestly, and his eloquence thrilled me with sensations unlike anything I had felt before. There was unmeasured poetry in every word he uttered. We had, I do not know how, got on to the subject of that book again, and he was defending it in language warm, fervid, and startling, as the story itself. My hand shook on his arm; a new idea had seized upon me, and against my own will I spoke. "'You wrote the book,' I said, 'I know it by your language. I can read the fact in this defence.' "'And you will like me no longer. You will condemn me as you have that poor volume,' he answered, turning suddenly, and looking into my eyes with the glance of an eagle. "'Condemn you!' I said. 'What, I?' "'But you condemn my book?' "'No, I did not. To question a thing, is not to condemn it.' "'But the doubt wounds me. You might have found sympathy for much that the book contains. It should appeal to a heart like yours.' "He held my hand firmly in his clasp. How it got there, I do not know. I struggled a little to free it, but his fingers closed around mine like a vice. "'Say that you will read my book again.' "'I will. Nothing could prevent me now.' "'And you will read it with a new inspiration?' "'After this conversation, yes.' "'That is, for one day you will think my thoughts, and give them fresh beauties as they pass through your own vivid imagination.' "'I will read them, and remember all that you have said.' "'Sweet woman, I thank you. If my poor words can touch a heart like yours, it is enough.'