"Behold, he standeth behind our wall; he looked forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice," she thought ecstatically.

"And, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." But it was necessary to consider the details of lodging and feeding him.
This she did most solicitously, and awaited the pregnant day and hour.
It was about five in the afternoon when she heard a ring at the door and the editor's brother's voice in the hall.

Poetess as she was, or as she thought herself, she had not been too sublime that day to dress with infinite trouble in a fashionable robe of rich material, having a faint resemblance to the chiton of the Greeks, a style just then in vogue among ladies of an artistic and romantic turn, which had been obtained by Ella of her Bond Street dressmaker when she was last in London.

Her visitor entered the drawing-room.

She looked towards his rear; nobody else came through the door.