The fair summer evening was tending towards twilight; the sun stood
fiery and low in a cloudless horizon; the last loveliness of the last
quietest daylight hour was fading on the violet sky, as I entered the
square.

I approached the house. She was at the window--it was thrown wide
open. A bird-cage hung rather high up, against the shutter-panel. She
was standing opposite to it, making a plaything for the poor captive
canary of a piece of sugar, which she rapidly offered and drew back
again, now at one bar of the cage, and now at another. The bird hopped
and fluttered up and down in his prison after the sugar, chirping as
if he enjoyed playing _his_ part of the game with his mistress. How
lovely she looked! Her dark hair, drawn back over each cheek so as
just to leave the lower part of the ear visible, was gathered up into
a thick simple knot behind, without ornament of any sort. She wore a
plain white dress fastening round the neck, and descending over the
bosom in numberless little wavy plaits. The cage hung just high enough
to oblige her to look up to it. She was laughing with all the glee of
a child; darting the piece of sugar about incessantly from place to
place. Every moment, her head and neck assumed some new and lovely
turn--every moment her figure naturally fell into the position which
showed its pliant symmetry best. The last-left glow of the evening
atmosphere was shining on her--the farewell pause of daylight over the
kindred daylight of beauty and youth.

I kept myself concealed behind a pillar of the garden-gate; I looked,
hardly daring either to move or breathe; for I feared that if she saw
or heard me, she would leave the window. After a lapse of some
minutes, the canary touched the sugar with his beak.