Kilmeny of the Orchard

e bench under the white lilac tree, with the violin in her lap. As soon as she saw him she caught

er bow, and looked up at him with

at say to yo

ky is so blue and the apple blossoms so sweet. The wind and I have been here alone together and the wind is a good companion, but still I a

ands, looking lik

alive, and that the apple blossoms and the white lilacs and the trees and I were all pleased together to see you come. You are quicker than Neil. He is almost always puzzled to understand my

ing to her, sitting at the same table with her, dwelling under the same roof, meeting her in the hundred intimacies of d

" he said. "I want to lie

e told himself as he listened, had genius. But it was being wholly wasted. He found himself thinking resentfully of the people who were her guardians, and who were responsible for her strange life. They had done her a great and irremediable wrong. How dared they doom her to su

green hills or on yellow sands, music that might have mourned over the grave of a dead hope. Then she drifted into a still sweeter strain. As he listened to it he realized that the whole soul and nature of the girl were revealing

id her violin

t is your turn now. Do you remember a promis

he book was so fine and full of beauty that he thought it could not bruise the bloom of her innocence ever so slightly. He had no doubts about the poet

s. The minutes passed very swiftly. There was just then no world for him outside of

cording to her habit, and laughed aloud-a clear, musical, silvery peal. It fell on Eric's ear with a shock of surprise. He thought it strange that she

ddy sunlight falling through the lilac branches on her bare, silky head like a shower of red jewels, "do you

ook he

ourse I am sorry I cannot speak, but I am quite

why it is that you are unable to speak, wh

it was a judgment on her for a great sin she had committed, and she looked so stra

ctor to have your tongue and

or in Charlottetown and see if anything could be done for me, but mother would not let him.

naturally. Can you m

tle cries. But it is only when I am not thinking of it at all th

Eric more myste

o speak-to utter w

e say them. Do not look so sorry, my friend. I am very happy and I do not mind so very much not being able to speak-only sometimes when I

guish little melody as if she were trying to tease him, looking at

evening. He walked home in a brown study. Kilmeny's case certainly seem

he is not thinking about it," he reflected. "I wish David Baker could examine her. But I sup