A Parisian Romance — page 31: what you’re looking at

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

22 A PARISIAN ROMANCE, Sleep, oh, my love, close thy great, calm eyes, Thy weary eyes, thy eyes so true and dear ; And, leaning o’er thee, I will drink thy sighs, The perfume of thy beauty blooming near.” Not content with endowing Marcelle Rigaud with more than ordinary beauty, the gods had added the gift of a really wonderful voice, deep, clear, and silvery asa bell. With a little cultivation it would have created a furor among the dillefante of even Paris, the most cultured city in the world. It can easily be imagined, then, what was the effect upon her single auditor, the man who adored her, and who now listened to his own words, sung in a manner that gave them ameaning he had never fancied until now they possessed. As the last low, sweet notes died away, there was perfect silence. For some moments neither spoke, but the unuttered words were perhaps more elo- quent than any speech could have been. De Targy’s eyes still rested upon the young girl, eagerly drink- ing in her beauty, and she, although apparently unconscious, instinctively felt that a crisis in her life was approaching. De Targy was the first to speak. “No. words,” he said, slowly, “can tell you the happiness it gives me to hear words of my com- position sung by you. J——” He stopped short. A sort of despair took posses- sion of him as, in his modest estimation of himself, he thought that his longing to have this girl for his GEomicbooks.Go