’Excuse me, madam, but I love you.  Will you be my wife?  I am just turning thirty.  I have so much a year, a comfortable little home, and probably another thirty years of life to spend.  Will you not go shares with me?’

And my imagination went on making pictures:  how her eyes would suddenly brighten up like the northern aurora, how a strange bloom would settle on her somewhat weary face, and a dimple steal into her chin; how, when she reached home and sat down to read Jane Austen to her mother, her mother would suddenly imagine roses in the room, and she would blushingly answer, ‘Nay, mother—­it is my cheeks!’; and presently the mother would ask, ‘Where is that smell of violets coming from?’ and again she would answer, ‘Nay, mother—­it is my thoughts!’; and yet again the mother would say, ‘Hush! listen to that wonderful bird singing yonder!’ and she would answer, ‘Nay, mother dear—­it is only my heart!’

But, alas! she alighted at Charing Cross, and not one of us in the compartment had asked her to be his wife.

The weary clerk, the sweated shopman, the jaded engineer—­how good it would be to say to any of them, ’Here, let us change places awhile.  Here is my latch-key, my cheque-book, my joy and my leisure.  Use them as long as you will.  Quick, let us change clothes, and let me take my share of the world’s dreariness and pain’!

Or to stop the old man of sixty, as he hobbles down the hill, with never a thought of youth or spring in his heart, not a hope in his pocket, and his faith long since run dry—­to stop him and say:  ’See, here are thirty years; I have no use for them.  Will you not take them?  If you are quick, you may yet catch up Phyllis by the stile.  She has a wonderful rose in her hand.  She will sell it you for these thirty years; and she knows a field where a lark is singing as though it were in heaven!’

To take the old lady from the bath-chair, and let her run with her daughter to gather buttercups, or make eyes at the church gallants.  Oh, this were better far than living to one’s-self, if we were only selfish enough to see it!

But, best of all were it to go to the churchyard, where the dead have long since given up all hopes of resurrection, and find some new grave, whose inhabitant was not yet so fast asleep but that he might be awakened by a kind word.  To go to Alice’s grave and call, ‘Alice!  Alice!’ and then whisper:  ’The spring is here!  Didn’t you hear the birds calling you?  I have come to tell you it is time to get ready.  In two hours the church-bells will be ringing, and Edward will be waiting for you at the altar.  The organist is already trying over the ‘Wedding March,’ and the bridesmaids have had their dresses on and off twice.  They can talk of nothing but orange-blossom and rice.  Alice, dear, awaken.  Ah, did you have strange dreams, poor girl—­dream that you were dead!  Indeed, it was a dream—­an evil dream.’