Die because--_Rebecca's_--fair?
Or make pale my cheeks with care
'Cause _Rebecca's_ rosier are?"

"Hortense!" I protested.

"Be _he_ fairer than the day
Or the _June-field coils of hay_;
If _he_ be not so to me,
What care I how _fine_ he be?"

There was such merriment in the dark-lashed eyes, I defy Eli Kirke
himself to have taken offence; and so, like many another youth, I was
all too ready to be the pipe on which a dainty lady played her stops.
As the song faded to the last tinkling notes of the spinet her fingers
took to touching low, tuneless melodies like thoughts creeping into
thoughts, or perfume of flowers in the dark. The melting airs slipped
into silence, and Hortense shut her eyes, "to get the memory of it,"
she said. I thought she meant some new-fangled tune.

"This is memory enough for me," said I.

"Oh?" asked Hortense, and she uncovered all the blaze of the dark
lights hid in those eyes.

"Faith, Hortense," I answered, like a moth gone giddy in flame, "your
naughty music wakes echoes of what souls must hear in paradise."

"Then it isn't naughty," said Hortense, beginning to play fiercely,
striking false notes and discords and things.