whiskers could do no wrong.

Stella was not uninfluenced, it may be, by Miss Van Orden's example,
for even in girlhood the latter was a person of extraordinary beauty,
whereas, as has been said, Stella's corners were then multitudinous;
and it is probable that those two queer little knobs at the base of
Stella's throat would be apt to render their owner uncomfortable and a
bit abject before--let us say--more ample charms. In any event, Stella
giggled and said she thought it would be just fine, and I presently
conducted her to the third piazza of the hotel.

There we found a world that was new.


3

It was a world of sweet odors and strange lights, flooded with a
kindly silence which was, somehow, composed of many lispings and
trepidations and thin echoes. The night was warm, the sky all
transparency. If the comparison was not manifestly absurd, I would
liken that remembered sky's pale color to the look of blue plush
rubbed the wrong way. And in its radiance the stars bathed, large and
bright and intimate, yet blurred somewhat, like shop-lights seen
through frosted panes; and the moon floated on it, crisp and clear as
a new-minted coin. This was the full midsummer moon, grave and
glorious, that compelled the eye; and its shield was obscurely marked,
as though a Titan had breathed on its chill surface. Its light
suffused the heavens and lay upon the earth beneath us in broad
splashes; and the foliage about us was dappled with its splendor, save
in the open east, where the undulant, low hills wore radiancy as a