picture or a sunset, or to one of those calm days at sea, when
one seems to be lying in the hollow of a blue pearl; sometimes,
but rarely, to a word spoken by someone who chanced to give
utterance, at the right moment, to what I felt but could not
express."

"Someone whom you loved?" asked the Spirit.

"I never loved anyone, in that way," she said, rather sadly, "nor
was I thinking of any one person when I spoke, but of two or
three who, by touching for an instant upon a certain chord of my
being, had called forth a single note of that strange melody
which seemed sleeping in my soul. It has seldom happened,
however, that I have owed such feelings to people; and no one
ever gave me a moment of such happiness as it was my lot to feel
one evening in the Church of Or San Michele, in Florence."

"Tell me about it," said the Spirit.

"It was near sunset on a rainy spring afternoon in Easter week.
The clouds had vanished, dispersed by a sudden wind, and as we
entered the church the fiery panes of the high windows shone out
like lamps through the dusk. A priest was at the high altar, his
white cope a livid spot in the incense-laden obscurity, the light
of the candles flickering up and down like fireflies about his
head; a few people knelt near by. We stole behind them and sat
down on a bench close to the tabernacle of Orcagna.

"Strange to say, though Florence was not new to me, I had never
been in the church before; and in that magical light I saw for