Aymer listened to her as she played. He sat by the invalid under the shadow of the sycamore tree near the open window, where he could see her sitting at the piano, pouring forth the music of Mendelssohn in that peculiar monotonous cadence which marks the master’s works and fills the mind with a pleasant melancholy. Now and then her head turned, a glance met his, and then the long eyelashes drooped again. Presently out she would come with a rush, making old Dando (short for Dandolo) bound and bark with delight as he raced her round the green, tearing her flowing dress with his teeth, and whisking away when she tried to catch him. The grace of her motions, the suppleness of her lithe form, filled Aymer’s heart with a fierce desire to clasp her waist and devour her lips, while the invalid laughed aloud at the heavy bounds of his dog. The old man saw clearly what was going forward, yet he did not put forth his hand to stay it. They were a happy trio that summer and autumn at World’s End. Chapter Three. The summer passed away, as all things do, the winter, and the spring blossomed afresh, and still the course of true love ran smooth with Aymer and Violet. The winter had been only one degree less pleasant than the summer. Violet had a beautiful voice; Aymer’s was not nearly so fine: still, it was fairly good, and scarcely an evening passed without duets and solos on the pianoforte, while old Waldron, animated for the time beyond his wont, accompanied them upon the violin. He had an instrument which, next to his daughter and his dog Dando, he valued above all things. It was by Guarnerius, and he handled it with more care than a mother does her infant, expatiating upon the quality of the wood, the sycamore and pine, the beauty of the varnish, the peculiar, inimitable curl of the scroll, which had genius in its very twist. Aymer was a ready listener. In the first place, he had grown to look upon Waldron in the light that he would have regarded an affectionate and beneficent father. Then he was, above all things, anxious to please Violet, and he knew that she adored the Silver Fleece, as she called him, in laughing allusion to his odd Christian name, Jason, and to his grey hairs. And, lastly, he really did feel a curiosity and a desire to learn. Sometimes Aymer gave Violet lessons in drawing, and she repaid him with lessons in French and music, being proficient in both. After a while Waldron discovered that this boy, without means or friends, had made himself acquainted with the classics, and had even journeyed as a pilgrim to the shrines of ancient art at Florence.