The sky was all sapphire, the air a perfumed ocean.

So beautiful rang the spring that it was like a bell in the heart, in the blood.

The laird of Glenfernie, coming to a great natural chair of sun-warmed rock, sat down to listen.

All was of a sweetness, poignant, intense.

But in the very act of recognizing this, there came upon him an old mood of melancholy, an inner mist and chill, a gray languor and wanting.