As she sang the last verse she seemed in a dream, and her rich voice,
rising with the spirit of the concluding lines, poured out the notes like
a bird drunk with the air of spring.

"Guida," he cried, springing to his feet, "when you sing like that it
seems to me I live in a world that has nothing to do with the sordid
business of life, with my dull trade--with getting the weather-gauge or
sailing in triple line. You're a planet all by yourself, Mistress Guida!
Are you ready to come into the garden?"

"Yes, yes, in a minute," she answered. "You go out to the big apple-
tree, and I'll come in a minute." The apple-tree was in the farthest
corner of the large garden. Near it was the summer-house where Guida
and her mother used to sit and read, Guida on the three-legged stool,
her mother on the low, wide seat covered with ferns. This spot Guida
used to "flourish" with flowers. The vines, too, crept through the
rough latticework, and all together made the place a bower, secluded and
serene. The water of the little stream outside the hedge made music too.

Philip placed himself on the bench beneath the appletree. What a change
was all this, he thought to himself, from the staring hot stones of
Malta, the squalor of Constantinople, the frigid cliffs of Spitzbergen,
the noisome tropical forests of the Indies! This was Arcady. It was
peace, it was content. His life was sure to be varied and perhaps
stormy--here would be the true change, the spirit of all this. Of course
he would have two sides to his life like most men: that lived before the
world, and that of the home. He would have the fight for fame. He would
have to use, not duplicity, but diplomacy, to play a kind of game; but
this other side to his life, the side of love and home, should be simple,