"I think I had rather not see the machinery," I said. "I never heard
anything so delicious."

"You're right again," said Father Payne;

"'The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.'

Let it stay at that!"

I little thought how much I should grow to connect that fairy gavotte with
Aveley. It always seemed to me like a choir of spirits. I would awake
sometimes on summer nights and hear it chiming in the silent house, or at
noon it would come faintly through the passages. That, and the songs of the
birds in the shrubberies, always flash into my mind when I think of the
place; because it was essentially a silent house, more noiseless than any I
have ever lived in; and I love the thought of its silence; and of its
fragrance--for that was another note of the place. In the hall stood great
china jars with pierced covers, which were always full of pot-pourri; there
was another in the library, and another in Father Payne's study, and two
more in the passage above which looked out by the little gallery upon the
hall. Silence and fragrance always, in the background of all we did; and
outlining itself upon the stillness, the little melody, jetting out like a
fountain of silver sound.



VI

FATHER PAYNE