But now to other things, for indeed I am not in the fault-finding mood you might suppose.  Only, as you know well, I can always worry about you, at any time.

Well, I have seen my wood-sprite again, this very morning.  I could not sleep after six, although I twice covered up my head with the bed-clothes and made believe I was not awake; so I got up, and the young sun was so beautiful, driving the mists out of the valley, that I went out.

Between the flower garden and the park, there lies a shrubbery; green paths wind in and out between high walls of box and laurel, leading one at length to a little blue door in an old wall.  Well, I was stepping along between the evergreens as fast as the moss on the pebbles would let me, swinging my hat round as I went, and singing loudly, when I thought I heard footsteps round the bend of the path.  I turned the corner—­nobody; only a little scrambling sound, and the treacherous flutter of a branch in the laurel hedge.  Of course I immediately thought of poachers, and in my imagination already saw Emilia Fletcher stretched a lifeless corpse upon the ground.  I took three backward steps, then paused.  Silence and stillness reigned.

Pooh! thought I, it’s nothing, and with a bold, swift step I walked past the fearful spot.  No sooner had I passed than there came another crackle; I turned and beheld a luminous eye between the branches.  Whether I turned pale with fright or not, I cannot tell; but a hand came forth, a foot, then, with considerable difficulty, an entire body; and on the path before me stood my dishevelled friend, covered with green dust and blushes.

“I have no excuse to offer,” said he.

I laughed; there was nothing else to do.

“You did startle me,” said I, “but I forgive you.”

I did not ask him what he was doing in my shrubbery, nor did he offer the least explanation.

“Are you going for a walk?” said he, simply, “and, if so, may I go with you?”

I was glad enough, and we had taken a few steps forward when he suddenly clapped his hands to his pockets.

“I shall have to get into the bush again,” he cried, with rueful face; “I must have dropped ‘Peer Gynt.’”

And in he scrambled, returning triumphant with an exceedingly shabby book.

We walked a full hour and a half, through the park, through the woods, and through the park again, for he insisted on bringing me back to the little blue door.  We talked mostly about “Peer Gynt,” which, by the way, he is reading in the original.  He seems to read every possible language, although he declares he speaks nothing but English.  We did not talk at all about ourselves, so I know nothing further about him, save that he lives in a cottage on the heath towards Miltonhoe, with his father and his aunt.

When we parted company, he asked me if I would mind going to see his aunt.

“I believe,” said he, “that she ought to call first on you,—­at least, she says so,—­but that she’ll never do.  If I landed her at your very door, she’d never find courage to ring the bell.”