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There Jill sat or lay among her cushions reading, trying to sketch, sorting shells, drying gay sea-weeds, or watching her crabs, jelly-fish, and anemones in the old boiler, now buried in sand and edged about with moss from the woods. Nobody disturbed her treasures, but kindly added to them, and often when she went to her nest she found fruit or flowers, books or bon-bons, laid ready for her.
It is the story of her girlhood, and of the strange wood-carving which stood on the gilded table in the bed of purple anemones. One morning in April, as I climbed the long stone stairs which led to her apartment, I met Anita, the flower-woman who carried flowers to her every day. Anita looked troubled. "What is the matter, my Anita?" said I; "is the Signora ill?"
Among the dead leaves of the woods, the snowy blossoms of the blood-root had already burst forth in starry clusters; the anemones trembled between the sheltering knees of the old oaks, and here and there a single buttercup dropped its gold on the meadows. These things were so many presentiments of brighter days in Nature, and they awoke a corresponding faith in her own heart.
Farther on, where the rocks descend to the sea level, we roam the beach and gather sea shells, starfish, and sea urchins; and by a shallow pool we stop to watch the scarlet fringes of the sea anemones, waving back and forth with the action of the tide. Barnacles cover the top of every rock that the tide reaches, and the long, blackish, snakelike seaweed is strewn along the beach.
He is not thinking of any bush, no matter how beautiful, but of trailing arbutus, hepaticas, bloodroot, anemones, saxifrage, violets, dogtooth violets, spring beauties, "cowslips," buttercups, corydalis, columbine, Dutchman's breeches, clintonia, five-finger, and all the rest of that bright and fragrant host which, ever since he can remember, he has seen covering his native hills and valleys with the return of May.
Then Dame Spring came for the last time through the wood. She still had the oaks and some other querulous old fellows to visit: "Lie down nicely to sleep now in the ground," she said to the anemones. "It's no use kicking against the pricks. Next year, I will come again and wake you to new life." And some of the anemones did as she told them.
And while Hyacinthe worked, he told, of sunshine and dust, of the shadow of vine-leaves on the flat white walls of a house; of rosy doves on the roof; of the flowers that come out in the spring, anemones crimson and blue, and white cyclamen in the shadow of the rocks; of the olive, the myrtle, and the almond; until Hyacinthe's fingers ceased working, and his sleepy eyes blinked wonderingly.
The Bowers appeared to know it, and one and another whispered as she passed, "Adorn thyself with me, thou beautiful child, adorn thyself with me!" and, to please them, Pearl gathered the violets, and anemones, and columbines, and some twigs of the freshest green, which the old trees held down before her eyes.
She hath a nose like the edge of the burnished blade and cheeks like purple wine or anemones blood-red: her lips as coral and carnelian shine and the water of her mouth is sweeter than old wine; its taste would quench Hell's fiery pain. 'She hath wrists which, did her bangles not contain, * Would run from out her sleeves in silvern rain.
As they looked over the side they could gaze down through the crystal-clear water into the groves of seaweed and shrubberies of coral, where the anemones and star-fish were dotting every clear spot with what looked like floral beauties. "Seems a shame to throw all that filth overboard, and spoil all that lovely clearness," said Carey. "Do it, sir? Ah, it won't spoil it long.
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