Those apple trees now -- why , what is that ? '' Eric started up and listened . Across the mellow stillness , mingled with the croon of the wind in the trees and the flute-like calls of the robins , came a strain of delicious music , so beautiful and fantastic that Eric held his breath in astonishment and delight . Was he dreaming ? No , it was real music , the music of a violin played by some hand inspired with the very spirit of harmony . He had never heard anything like it ; and , somehow , he felt quite sure that nothing exactly like it ever had been heard before ; he believed that that wonderful music was coming straight from the soul of the unseen violinist , and translating itself into those most airy and delicate and exquisite sounds for the first time ; the very soul of music , with all sense and earthliness refined away . It was an elusive , haunting melody , strangely suited to the time and place ; it had in it the sigh of the wind in the woods , the eerie whispering of the grasses at dewfall , the white thoughts of the June lilies , the rejoicing of the apple blossoms ; all the soul of all the old laughter and song and tears and gladness and sobs the orchard had ever known in the lost years ; and besides all this , there was in it a pitiful , plaintive cry as of some imprisoned thing calling for freedom and utterance . At first Eric listened as a man spellbound , mutely and motionlessly , lost in wonderment . Then a very natural curiosity overcame him . Who in Lindsay could play a violin like that ? And who was playing so here , in this deserted old orchard , of all places in the world ? He rose and walked up the long white avenue , going as slowly and silently as possible , for he did not wish to interrupt the player . When he reached the open space of the garden he stopped short in new amazement and was again tempted into thinking he must certainly be dreaming . Under the big branching white lilac tree was an old , sagging , wooden bench ; and on this bench a girl was sitting , playing on an old brown violin . Her eyes were on the faraway horizon and she did not see Eric . For a few moments he stood there and looked at her . The pictures she made photographed itself on his vision to the finest detail , never to be blotted from his book of remembrance . To his latest day Eric Marshall will be able to recall vividly that scene as he saw it then -- the velvet darkness of the spruce woods , the overarching sky of soft brilliance , the swaying lilac blossoms , and amid it all the girl on the old bench with the violin under her chin . He had , in his twenty-four years of life , met hundreds of pretty women , scores of handsome women , a scant half dozen of really beautiful women . But he knew at once , beyond all possibility of question or doubt , that he had never seen or imagined anything so exquisite as this girl of the orchard .
Her loveliness was so perfect XXXXX his breath almost went from him in his first delight of it .
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