for a man of humble mind toward the sex to think of in the fact of a young lady’s bending rather low to peep at him asleep, except that the poise of her slender figure, between an air of spying and of listening, vividly recalled his likening of her to the Mountain Echo.  Man or maid sleeping in the open air provokes your tiptoe curiosity.  Men, it is known, have in that state cruelly been kissed; and no rights are bestowed on them, they are teased by a vapourish rapture; what has happened to them the poor fellows barely divine:  they have a crazy step from that day.  But a vision is not so distracting; it is our own, we can put it aside and return to it, play at rich and poor with it, and are not to be summoned before your laws and rules for secreting it in our treasury.  Besides, it is the golden key of all the possible; new worlds expand beneath the dawn it brings us.  Just outside reality, it illumines, enriches and softens real things;—­and to desire it in preference to the simple fact is a damning proof of enervation.

Such was Vernon’s winding up of his brief drama of fantasy.  He was aware of the fantastical element in him and soon had it under.  Which of us who is of any worth is without it?  He had not much vanity to trouble him, and passion was quiet, so his task was not gigantic.  Especially be it remarked, that he was a man of quick pace, the sovereign remedy for the dispersing of the mental fen-mist.  He had tried it and knew that nonsense is to be walked off.

Near the end of the park young Crossjay overtook him, and after acting the pumped one a trifle more than needful, cried:  “I say, Mr. Whitford, there’s Miss Middleton with her handkerchief out.”

“What for, my lad?” said Vernon.

“I’m sure I don’t know.  All of a sudden she bumped down.  And, look what fellows girls are!—­here she comes as if nothing had happened, and I saw her feel at her side.”

Clara was shaking her head to express a denial.  “I am not at all unwell,” she said, when she came near.  “I guessed Crossjay’s business in running up to you; he’s a good-for-nothing, officious boy.  I was tired, and rested for a moment.”

Crossjay peered at her eyelids.  Vernon looked away and said:  “Are you too tired for a stroll?”

“Not now.”

“Shall it be brisk?”

“You have the lead.”

He led at a swing of the legs that accelerated young Crossjay’s to the double, but she with her short, swift, equal steps glided along easily on a fine by his shoulder, and he groaned to think that of all the girls of earth this one should have been chosen for the position of fine lady.

“You won’t tire me,” said she, in answer to his look.

“You remind me of the little Piedmontese Bersaglieri on the march.”

“I have seen them trotting into Como from Milan.”

“They cover a quantity of ground in a day, if the ground’s flat.  You want another sort of step for the mountains.”