Moths by Ouida — page 33: what you’re looking at

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

MOTHS. | 99 fisher-boy. That the fisher-boy would ever find Keziah he did not in the least see any reason to believe; but he did not see any reason either why he should tell Vere so, to make her anxious and disturbed. The girl had sucha lovely face, and her innocence and seriousness pleased him. ‘* Are you sure the boy will soon find my woman?” she asked ef him, wistfully. ‘*Quite sure,” he answered. ‘‘ He saw her himself, a little while ago, on the top of the cliff yonder. Do not be dismayed about that, and find some appetite for this homely fare. I have made requisitions like any Prussian, but the result is poorer than I hoped it might be. Try some cherries.” The cherries were fine biggaroons, scarlet and white, and Vere was still a:child. She drank her milk and ate them with keen relish. Themorning was growing warm as the sun clomb higher in the heavens. She took off her hat, and the wind lifted the shick hair falling over her forehead; exertion and excitement uad brought a flush of color in her cheeks; the light and shade of the walnut leaves was above her head; little curly-headed children peeped behind the furze fence and the sweet-brier hedge; white-capped old women looked on, nodding and smiling; the sea . was out of sight, but the sound and the scent of it came there. ‘It is an idyl,” thought her companion: idyls were not in his life,which was one of unending triumphs, passions, and festivals, dizzily mingled in a world which adored him. Meanwhile it pleased him, if only by force of novelty, and no incident on earth could ever have found him unready. ‘*'You love music?” he cried to her. ‘‘Ah! now if we were but in Italy in that dark little cottage there would be sure to be a chitarra, and I would give you a serenade to your cherries— perhaps without one: why not, if you like it? But first, Made- moiselle Herbert, I ought to tell you who {[ am.” ‘‘Oh, I know,” said Vere, and lifted her soft eyes to him with a cherry against her lips. d ‘* Indeed?” ‘‘Yes, Isaw you on the plage yesterday, and Adrienne told me. You are Correze.” She said the name tenderly and reverently, for his fame had reached her in her childhood, and she had often thought to her- self, ‘‘If only I could hear Correze once!” : He smiled caressingly. ‘‘T am glad that you cared to ask. Yes, Iam Correze, that is certain; and perhaps Correze would be the name of a greater ar- tist if the world had not spoilt him—your mamma’s world, mademoiselle. Well, my life is very happy, and very gay and lad, and after all the fame of the singer can never be buta reath, a sound through a reed. When our lips are once shut _there is on us forever eternal silence. Who can remember a sums mer breeze when it has passed by, or tell in any after-time how 9. laugh or a sigh sounded?’ His face grew for the moment sad and overcast—that beautiful face which had fascinated the eyes of the girl as they had done Comicbooks co