and power if the singer would. It spoke only of the song, yet the listener
thought of the singer. Under the moon thoughts run into dreams, and he
dreamed that the owner of the voice, she who quoted "The Walrus and the
Carpenter" on Fisbee's notes, was one to laugh with you and weep with you;
yet her laughter would be tempered with sorrow, and her tears with
laughter.

When the song was ended, he struck the rail he leaned upon a sharp blow
with his open hand. There swept over him a feeling that he had stood
precisely where he stood now, on such a night, a thousand years ago, had
heard that voice and that song, had listened and been moved by the song,
and the night, just as he was moved now.

He had long known himself for a sentimentalist; he had almost given up
trying to cure himself. And he knew himself for a born lover; he had
always been in love with some one. In his earlier youth his affections had
been so constantly inconstant that he finally came to settle with his
self-respect by recognizing in himself a fine constancy that worshipped
one woman always--it was only the shifting image of her that changed!
Somewhere (he dreamed, whimsically indulgent of the fancy; yet mocking
himself for it) there was a girl whom he had never seen, who waited till
he should come. She was Everything. Until he found her, he could not help
adoring others who possessed little pieces and suggestions of her--her
brilliancy, her courage, her short upper lip, "like a curled roseleaf," or
her dear voice, or her pure profile. He had no recollection of any lady
who had quite her eyes.

He had never passed a lovely stranger on the street, in the old days,
without a thrill of delight and warmth. If he never saw her again, and the
vision only lasted the time it takes a lady to cross the sidewalk from a