Maryllia raised her eyes.  There was a glisten on her long lashes as of tears.

“Please forgive me!” she said simply—­“And thank you for speaking as you have done!  I shall always remember it, and honour you for it.  I hope we shall be friends?”

She put the words as a query, and half timidly held out her little ungloved hand.  He took it at once and pressed it cordially.

“Indeed, I am sure we shall!” he said heartily, and the smile that made his face more than ordinarily handsome lit up his eyes and showed a depth of sincerity and kindly feeling reflected straight from his honest soul.  A sudden blush swept over Maryllia’s cheeks, and she gently withdrew her hand from his clasp.  A silence fell between them, and when they broke the spell it was by a casual comment respecting the wealth of apple-blossoms that were making the trees around them white with their floral snow.

“St. Rest is a veritable orchard, when the season favours it,” said Walden—­“It is one of the best fruit-growing corners in England.  At Abbot’s Manor, for instance, the cherry crop is finer than can be gathered on the same acreage of ground in Kent.  Did you know that?”

Maryllia laughed.

“No!  I know absolutely nothing about my own home, Mr. Walden,—­and I am perfectly aware that I ought to be ashamed of my ignorance.  I am ashamed of it!  I’m going to try and amend the error of my ways as fast as I can.  When Cicely Bourne comes to stay with me, she will help me.  She’s ever so much more sensible than I am.  She’s a genius.”

“Geniuses do not always get the credit of being sensible, do they?” queried John, smiling—­“Are they not supposed to be creatures of impulse, dwellers in the air, and wholly irresponsible?”

“Exactly so,”—­she replied—­“That is the commonplace opinion commonplace people entertain of them.  Yet the commonplace people owe everything they enjoy in art, literature and science to the conceptions of genius, and of genius alone.  As for Cicely, she is the most practical little person possible.  She began to earn her living at the age of eleven, and has ‘roughed’ it in the world more severely than many a man.  But she keeps her dreams,”

“And those who wish her well will pray that she may always keep them,”—­said Walden—­“For to lose one’s illusions is to lose the world.”

“The world itself may be an illusion!” said Maryllia, drawing near the garden gate and leaning upon it for a moment, as she glanced up at him with a vague sadness in her eyes,—­“We never know.  I have often felt that it is only a pretty little pageant, with a very dark background behind it!”