“Oh,” he said lightly, “I am not one of the people who have adventures—­just the journey and the talk beside the way.”

“But,” I said, “I have seen some others like you, and I am puzzled about it.  You seem, if I may say so—­I do not mean anything disrespectful or impertinent—­to be like the gipsies whom one meets in quiet country places, with a secret knowledge of their own, a pride too great to be worth expressing, not anxious about life, not weary or dissatisfied, caring not for localities or possessions, but with a sort of eager pleasure in freedom and movement.”

He laughed.  “Yes,” he said, “you are right!  I am no doubt a sort of nomad, as you say, detached from life perhaps.  I don’t know that it is desirable; there is a great deal to be said for living in the same place and loving the same things.  Most people are happier so, and learn what they have to learn in that manner.”

“Yes,” I said, “that is true and beautiful—­the same old house, the same trees and pastures, the stream and the water-plants that hide it, the blue hills beyond the nearer wood—­the dear familiar things; but even so the road which passes through the fields, over the bridge, up the covert-side ... it leads somewhere, and the heart on sunny days leaps up to follow it!  Talking with you here, I feel a hunger for something wider and more free; your voice has the sound of the wind, with the secret knowledge of strange hill-tops and solitary seas!  Sometimes the heart settles down upon what it knows and loves, but sometimes it reaches out to all the love and beauty hidden in the world, and in the waters beyond the world, and would embrace it all if it could.  The faces one sees as one passes through unfamiliar cities or villages, how one longs to talk, to question, to ask what gave them the look they wear....  And you, if I may say it, seem to have passed beyond the need of wanting or desiring anything ... but I must not talk thus to a stranger; you must forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” said the stranger; “that is only an earthly phrase—­the old terror of indiscretion and caution.  What are we here for but to get acquainted with one another—­to let our inmost thoughts talk together?  In the world we are bounded by time and space, and we have the terror of each other’s glances and exteriors to contend with.  We make friends on earth in spite of our limitations; but in heaven we get to know each other’s hearts; and that blessing goes back with us to the dim fields and narrow houses of the earth.  I see plainly enough that you are not perfectly happy; but one can only win content through discontent.  Where you are now, you are not in accord with the souls about you.  Never mind that!  There are beautiful spirits within reach of your hand and heart; a little clouded by mistaking the quality of joy, no doubt, but great and everlasting for all that.  You must try to draw near to them, and find spirits to love.  Do you not remember in the days