over the snows. It was a glorious sunset, the west vibrating
with gorgeous colour spilt over in torrents that flooded the sky,
Terrible splendours - hues for which we have no thought - no
name. I had not thought of it as music until I saw her face but
she listened as well as saw, and her expression changed as it
changes when the pomp of a great orchestra breaks upon the
silence. It flashed to the chords of blood-red and gold that was
burning fire. It softened through the fugue of woven crimson
gold and flame, to the melancholy minor of ashes-of-roses and
paling green, and so through all the dying glories that faded
slowly to a tranquil grey and left the world to the silver
melody of one sole star that dawned above the ineffable heights
of the snows. Then she listened as a child does to a bird,
entranced, with a smile like a butterfly on her parted lips. I
never saw such a power of quiet.

She and I were walking next day among the forest ways, the
pine-scented sunshine dappling the dropped frondage. We had been
speaking of her mother. "It is such a misfortune for her," she
said thoughtfully, "that I am not clever. She should have had a
daughter who could have shared her thoughts. She analyses
everything, reasons about everything, and that is quite out of my
reach."

She moved beside me with her wonderful light step - the poise and
balance of a nymph in the Parthenon frieze.

"How do you see things?"

"See? That is the right word. I see things - I never reason about