A monster of a bee had been wandering overhead—­buzz, buzz, buzz—­now among the leaves, now flashing through the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David Swan.  The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly.  As free-hearted as she was innocent, the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief, brushed him soundly and drove him from beneath the maple shade.  How sweet a picture!  This good deed accomplished, with quickened breath and a deeper blush she stole a glance at the youthful stranger for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air.

“He is handsome!” thought she, and blushed redder yet.

How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him that, shattered by its very strength, it should part asunder and allow him to perceive the girl among its phantoms?  Why, at least, did no smile of welcome brighten upon his face?  She was come, the maid whose soul, according to the old and beautiful idea, had been severed from his own, and whom in all his vague but passionate desires he yearned to meet.  Her only could he love with a perfect love, him only could she receive into the depths of her heart, and now her image was faintly blushing in the fountain by his side; should it pass away, its happy lustre would never gleam upon his life again.

“How sound he sleeps!” murmured the girl.  She departed, but did not trip along the road so lightly as when she came.

Now, this girl’s father was a thriving country merchant in the neighborhood, and happened at that identical time to be looking out for just such a young man as David Swan.  Had David formed a wayside acquaintance with the daughter, he would have become the father’s clerk, and all else in natural succession.  So here, again, had good fortune—­the best of fortunes—­stolen so near that her garments brushed against him, and he knew nothing of the matter.

The girl was hardly out of sight when two men turned aside beneath the maple shade.  Both had dark faces set off by cloth caps, which were drawn down aslant over their brows.  Their dresses were shabby, yet had a certain smartness.  These were a couple of rascals who got their living by whatever the devil sent them, and now, in the interim of other business, had staked the joint profits of their next piece of villainy on a game of cards which was to have been decided here under the trees.  But, finding David asleep by the spring, one of the rogues whispered to his fellow: 

“Hist!  Do you see that bundle under his head?”

The other villain nodded, winked and leered.

“I’ll bet you a horn of brandy,” said the first, “that the chap has either a pocketbook or a snug little hoard of small change stowed away amongst his shirts.  And if not there, we will find it in his pantaloons pocket.”

“But how if he wakes?” said the other.

His companion thrust aside his waistcoat, pointed to the handle of a dirk and nodded.