concert, they courted in a special way.

There is no accounting for the pleasure people find in very ordinary ways. Isaac and Eliza found theirs in making the glass so clear that they could smile softly at each other without let or hindrance produced by smear or speck in any single pane. Their hands, too, were kept in contact, saving for cloth and glass, and moved in unison, describing circles and a variety of other figures, going into the corners together, changing from cloth to wash-leather, and moving, as it were, by one set of muscles till the task was concluded with a chaste salute—a kiss through the glass.

Meanwhile, anyone curious about the house would, if he had raised his eyes, have seen that one of the upstairs windows had a perfect screen of flowers, that grew from a broad, green box along the sill. Sweet peas clustered, roses bloomed, geraniums dotted it with brilliant tiny pointless stars of scarlet, and at one side there was a string that ran up from a peg to a nail, hammered, unknown to the MC, into the wall. That peg was an old tooth-brush handle, and the nail had been driven in with the back of a hairbrush; but bone handle and string were invisible now, covered by the twining strands of so many ipomaeas, whose heart-shaped leaves and trumpet blossoms formed one of the most lovely objects of the scene. Here they were of richest purple, fading into lavender and grey; there of delicate pink with well-formed starry markings in the inner bell, and moist with the soft air of early morning. Each blossom was a thing of beauty soon to fade, for, as the warm beams of the sun kissed them, the edges began to curl; then there would be a fit of shrivelling, and the bloom of the virgin flower passed under the sun-god’s too ardent caress.

About and above this screen of flowers, a something ivory white, and tinged with peachy pink, kept darting in and out. Now it touched a rose, and a shower of petals fell softly down; now a geranium leaf that was turning yellow disappeared; now again a twig that had borne roses was taken away, after a sound that resembled a steely click. Then the little crimson and purple blossoms of a fuchsia were touched, and shivered and twinkled in the light at the soft movements among the graceful stems as dying flowers were swept away.

For a minute again all was still, but the next, there was a fresh vibration amongst the flowers as this ivory whiteness appeared in a new place, curving round a plant as if in loving embrace; and at such times the blooms seemed drawn towards another and larger flower of thicker petal and of coral hue, that peeped out 

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