Moths by Ouida — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

VOTHS, | PCE hi lovely mother dances about so for two or three hours in the water- carnival every noonday!” | ‘* Do you know my mother?” said Vere, lifting her face, very not and troubled from winding the grass about her soles and in- steps. | “IT have had that honor for many years in Paris. You will have heard of me, perhaps. I am asinger.” Vere, for the first time, looked in his face, and saw that it was the face whose beauty had attracted her in the sunlight on the shore, and whom Adrienne had called the philtre @amour. ‘It was you who were singing, then?” she said, timidly, and thinking how beautiful and how wonderful he was, this great artist, who stood before her clothed in white, with the sun shin- ing in Lis luminous eyes. ‘“Yes. I came here to bathe and to swim, and then run over some of the scores of a new opera, that we shall have in Paris this winter, of Ambroise Thomas’. One cannot study in peace for ten minutes in Trouville. You love music, mademoiselle? Oh, you need. not speak; one always knows.” ‘‘T never went to any opera,” said Vere under her breath, re- suming her climb up the rock. ‘“Never! May I sing to you, then, in the first opera you hear ! Take care; this path is steep. Do not look back ; and catch at the piles where the guindeaux hang. You need fear nothing. I am behind you.” Vere climbed on in silence; the thick bands of grass protected her feet in a measure, yet it was hard and rough work. Young and strong though she was, she was glad when they reached the short grass on the head of the cliffs and sank down on it, field- fares and several birds of all kinds wheeling around her in the gray clear air. ‘You are not faint?’ he asked, anxiously. “Oh, no! Only tired.” : ‘Will you rest here ten minutes, and I will comeback to you?” ‘‘If you wish me.” | He smiled at the childish docility of the answer, and left her. whilst she leaned down on the turf of the table-land, and gaze6 at the sea far down below, and at the horizon where many #@ white sail shone, and here and there streamed the dark trail of ¢ steamer’s smoke. She had forgotten Keziah for the moment, she was only hearing in memory those wonderful tones, clear ag a lark’s song, rich as an organ’s swell, ringing over the waters it the silence. In less than ten minutes he was back at her side with a pair ov little new wooden shoes in his hand. | | ‘‘T thought these might save you from the stones and dust 3 little, Mademoiselle Herbert,” he said, ‘‘and it is im possible te procure any better kind in this village. Will you try shem?”’ She was grateful; the little shoes were achild’s size, and fitted as if they had been the glass slipper of Cinderella. ‘You are very good,” she said, timidly. ‘‘And how can you tell what my name is?” Dee BeANA RO hie 9M e(o) comicbooks