Moths by Ouida — page 28: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

oa, se" .. : ead = ie Wey r . ay a yy 3 Nt gt i 28 - s. a aa U ‘ ay “ : aie y ae 4 “ es w/ me: ‘ nal Ss E A er Rea 3} i+ VS Big Wage: Br Meare AL ant? eT a ai Mg | | ti: d 4 ; uA ‘MOTHS. the wind lifted the weighty gold of her straight-cut hair, and blew the old brown holland skirt away from her slender ankles. She began to look longingly at the water, spreading away from her so far and so far, and lying in delicious little cool shallows among the stones. She could not bathe, but she thought she might wade and paddle. Shetook off her shoes and stockings, and waded in. The rock pools were rather deep, and the water rose above her ankles; those pretty roses and lilacs and feathery hyacinths of thesea that science calls actinic uncurled their tufts of feathers, and spread out their starry crowns, and lifted theiz tiny bells around her; broad ribbon-weeds floated, crabs waddled, little live shells sailed here and there, and all manner of alge, brown and red, were curling about the big stones. She was in paradise. | She had been reared on the edge of the sea—the cold, dark, stern sea of the north, indeed, but still the sea. This was only p quiet, sunny nook of the French coast of the Channel, but it was charming from the silence, the sunshine, and the sweet liberty of the waters. She thought she was miles away from every one, and therefore was duly obeying her mother’s sole command. There was not even a sail in sight; quite far off was pa cloud of dark boats, which were the fishing-cobles of Honfleur; there was nothing else near, noihing but a score of gulls, spread- ing their white wings, and diving to catch the fish as they rose. She waded on and on, filling an old creel with seaweeds and pea-shells, for she was no more than a child in a great many things. The anemones she would not take, because she had no means of keeping them in comfort. She contented herself with standing nearly knee-deep and gazing down on all their glories geen through the glass of the still, sparkling water. She sprang from stone to stone, from pool to pool, forgetting Keziah seated on her rock. Neither did she see a pretty little dingy that was fastened to a stake among the bowlders. The air was perfectly still; there was only one sound, that of the incoming tide running up and rippling over the pebbles. ~. Suddenly a voice from the waves, as it seemed, began to chaunt parts of the Requiem of Mozart. It was a voice pure as a lark’s, rich as an organ’s swell, tender as love’s first embrace, marvelously melodious—in a word, that rarity which the earth is seldom blessed enough to hear from more than one mortal throat in any century; it was a perfectly beautiful tenor voice. Vere was standing in the water, struck dumb and motionless; fer eyes dilated, she scarcely breathed, every fiber of her being, yverything in her, body and soul, seemed to listen. She did not «nce wonder whence it came; the surpassing beauty and melody of it held her too entranced. . Whether it were in the air, in the water, in the sky, she never asked: one would have seemed as natural to her as the other. From the Requiem it passed with scarce a pause to the impas- sioned songs of Gounod’s Romeo. Whatever the future may say of Gounod, this it will never be able to deny, that he is _ the supreme master of the utterances of Love. The pase cS cComicboo (E(0)