Wide-spreading oaks and superb magnolias were lighted up with sudden flashes of color, as scarlet grosbeaks flitted from tree to tree.

Sparrows were chirping, doves cooing, and mocking-birds whistling, now running up the scale, then down the scale, with an infinity of variations between.

The outbursts of the birds were the same as in seasons that were gone, but the listener was changed.
Rarely before had her quick musical ear failed to notice how they would repeat the same note with greater or less emphasis, then flat it, then sharp it, varying their performances with all manner of unexpected changes.

But now she was merely vaguely conscious of familiar sounds, which brought before her that last merry day in her father's house, when Rosabella laughed so much to hear her puzzle the birds with her musical vagaries.

Memory held up her magic mirror, in which she saw pictured processions of the vanished years.