Walden hesitated.  A touch of sorrow and lingering regret clouded his eyes.

“No—­I cannot say that I do!” he answered, at last, with a sigh—­“In the past I was young, with all the world before me,—­in the present I am old, with all the world behind me!”

“Does it matter?” and Adderley lifted his eyelids with a languid expression—­“For instance let us suppose that in the past you have lost something and that in the present you gain something, does it not equalise the position?”

“The gain is very little in my case!”—­said John, yet even as he spoke he felt a pang of shame at his own thanklessness.  Had he not secured a peaceful home, a round of work that he loved, and happiness far beyond his merits, and had not God blessed him with health and a quiet mind?  Yes—­till quite lately he had had a quiet mind—­but now—–­

“You perhaps do not realise how much the gain is, or how far it extends,”—­pursued Adderley, thoughtfully—­“Youth and age appear to me to have perfectly equal delights and drawbacks.  Take me, for example,—­I am young, but I am in haste to be older, and when I am old I am sure I shall never want to be young again.  It is too unsettled a condition!”

Walden smiled, but made no answer.  They walked on in comparative silence till they reached Adderley’s cottage—­a humble but charmingly artistic tenement, with a thatched roof and a small garden in front which was little more than a tangle of roses.

“I am taking this house—­this mansion—­on,” said Julian, pausing at the gate—­“I shall stop here all winter.  The surroundings suit me.  Inspiration visits me in the flowering of the honeysuckle, and encircles me in the whispering of the wind among the roses.  When the leaves drop and the roses fade, I shall hear a different chord on the harp of song.  When the sleet and snow begin to fall, I shall listen to the dripping of the tears of Nature with as much sympathy as I now bask in her smiles.  I have been writing verses to the name of Maryllia—­they are not finished—­but they will come by degrees—­ yes!—­I am sure they will come!  This is how they begin,”—­and leaning on the low gate of his cottage entrance he recited softly, with half-closed eyes: 

    In the flowering-time of year
     When the heavens were crystal clear,
     And the skylark’s singing sweet
     Close against the sun did beat,—­
     All the sylphs of all the streams,
     All the fairies born in dreams,
     All the elves with wings of flame,
     Trooping forth from Cloudland came
     To the wooing of Maryllia!

Walden murmured something inarticulate, but Adderley waved him into silence, and continued: 

    Woodland sprites of ferns and trees,
     Ariels of the wandering breeze,
     Kelpies from the hidden caves
     Coral-bordered ’neath the waves,
     Sylphs, that in the rose’s heart,
     Laugh when leaves are blown apart,—­
     All the Faun and Dryad crew
     From their mystic forests flew
     To the wooing of Maryllia!