“Oh, eyes!” he whispered, softly, in that cool privacy and shelter from the world.  “Oh, eyes of blue!”

The mirror of a dressing-table sent him the reflection of his own eyes, which also were blue; and he gazed upon them and upon the rest of his image the while he ate his bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar.  Thus, watching himself eat, he continued to stare dreamily at the mirror until the bread-and-butter and apple sauce and sugar had disappeared, whereupon he rose and approached the dressing-table to study himself at greater advantage.

He assumed as repulsive an expression as he could command, at the same time making the kingly gesture of one who repels unwelcome attentions; and it is beyond doubt that he was thus acting a little scene of indifference.  Other symbolic dramas followed, though an invisible observer might have been puzzled for a key to some of them.  One, however, would have proved easily intelligible:  his expression having altered to a look of pity and contrition, he turned from the mirror, and, walking slowly to a chair across the room, used his right hand in a peculiar manner, seeming to stroke the air at a point about ten inches above the back of the chair.  “There, there, little girl,” he said in a low, gentle voice.  “I didn’t know you cared!”

Then, with a rather abrupt dismissal of this theme, he returned to the mirror and, after a questioning scrutiny, nodded solemnly, forming with his lips the words, “The real thing—­the real thing at last!” He meant that, after many imitations had imposed upon him, Love—­the real thing—­had come to him in the end.  And as he turned away he murmured, “And even her name—­unknown!”

This evidently was a thought that continued to occupy him, for he walked up and down the room, frowning; but suddenly his brow cleared and his eye lit with purpose.  Seating himself at a small writing-table by the window, he proceeded to express his personality—­though with considerable labor—­in something which he did not doubt to be a poem.

Three-quarters of an hour having sufficed for its completion, including “rewriting and polish,” he solemnly signed it, and then read it several times in a state of hushed astonishment.  He had never dreamed that he could do anything like this.

                    Milady
          I do not know her name
          Though it would be the same
          Where roses bloom at twilight
          And the lark takes his flight
          It would be the same anywhere
          Where music sounds in air
          I was never introduced to the lady
          So I could not call her Lass or Sadie
          So I will call her Milady
          By the sands of the sea
          She always will be
          Just M’lady to me. 
                         —­William sylvanus Baxter, Esq., July 14

It is impossible to say how many times he might have read the poem over, always with increasing amazement at his new-found powers, had he not been interrupted by the odious voice of Jane.