It was entirely preposterous that
a young woman should kneel at an attic window in a flood
of spring moonlight, with, her hair about the shoulders
of her nightgown, repeating Rossetti to the wakeful
budding garden, especially as it was for herself she did
it--nobody else saw her. She knelt there partly because
of a vague desire to taste the essence of the spring and
the garden and Rossetti at once, and partly because she
felt the romance of the foolish situation. She knew of
the shadow her hair made around her throat, and that her
eyes were glorious in the moonlight. Going back to bed,
she paused before the looking-glass and wafted a kiss,
as she blew the candle out, to the face she saw there.
It was such a pretty face, and so full of tire spirit
of. Rossetti and the moonlight, that she couldn't help
it. Then she slept, dreamlessly, comfortably, and late;
and in the morning she had never taken cold.
Philadelphia had pointed and sharpened all this. The
girl's training there had vitalized her brooding dreams
of producing what she worshipped, had given shape and
direction to her informal efforts, had concentrated them
upon charcoal and canvas. There was an enthusiasm for
work in the Institute, a canonization of names, a blazing
desire to imitate that tried hard to fan itself into
originality.
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