Page:The story of Mary MacLane (IA storyofmarymacla00macliala).pdf/193

 moats and draw-bridges and tiny mullioned windows with diamond panes. There was a cold, glittering cataract of white foam, and a little green boat far off down the river, drifting along under drooping willows. There was a tree of golden apples, and a banquet in a beautiful house with the melting music of lutes and harps, and mulled orange-wine in tall, thin glasses. There was a field of long, fine grass, soft as bat's-wool, and there were birds of brilliant plumage—scarlet and indigo with gold-tipped wings.

All these and a thousand fancies alike vaguely glittering would rush over me when I was with the anemone lady. Always my brain was in a gentle delirium. My nerves were unquiet.

It was because I love her.

Oh, there is not—there can never be—another anemone lady!

My life is a desert—a desert, but the thin, clinging perfume of the blue anemone reaches to its utter confines. And