Page:My Friend Annabel Lee (1903).pdf/204

 mind. And all that day the tending of the flocks would be a hard thing, and the apples on the deal table under the yew-tree would turn to dust in my mouth."

My friend Annabel Lee laid down her small silver fork, and placed her hands one upon another on her knee, and sat silent.

Oh, she was a beautiful, brilliant person sitting there! I wondered hazily as I watched her how much of the day's gold sunshine she made up for me, and how much would vanish were she to vanish.

Presently she talked again.

"Much depends,'depends," [sic] said my friend Annabel Lee, "upon the amount of contemplation that one does in one's way of living, and upon how one's contemplation runs. Contemplation is a thing that does a great deal of mischief. But I daresay that when it as an art is made perfect it is a rare good thing and a neat, obedient servant, and knows exactly when to enter the