She looked up now and then from the printed page,
and her gaze wandered over the stretch of the scented, flower-filled
garden, to the little silvery glimmer of the Fjord from whence arose,
like delicate black streaks against the sky, the slender masts of the
_Eulalie_,--and then she would resume her reading with a slight movement
of impatience.
The volume she held was Victor Hugo's "Orientales," and though her
sensitive imagination delighted in poetry as much as in sunshine, she
found it for once hard to rivet her attention as closely as she wished
to do, on the exquisite wealth of language, and glow of color, that
distinguishes the writings of the Shakespeare of France. Within the
house Britta was singing cheerily at her work, and the sound of her song
alone disturbed the silence. Two or three pale-blue butterflies danced
drowsily in and out a cluster of honeysuckle that trailed downwards,
nearly touching Thelma's shoulder, and a diminutive black kitten, with a
pink ribbon round its neck, sat gravely on the garden path, washing its
face with its tiny velvety paws, in that deliberate and precise fashion,
common to the spoiled and petted members of its class.
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