t was greater
than Jefferies' books--the spirit that led Jefferies to write them;
and his dawn, though revealing nothing but monotones, was part of the
eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow Stonehenge.

"Then you don't think I was foolish?" he asked becoming again the naive
and sweet-tempered boy for whom Nature intended him.

"Heavens, no!" replied Margaret.

"Heaven help us if we do!" replied Helen.

"I'm very glad you say that. Now, my wife would never understand--not if
I explained for days."

"No, it wasn't foolish!" cried Helen, her eyes aflame. "You've pushed
back the boundaries; I think it splendid of you."

"You've not been content to dream as we have--"

"Though we have walked, too--"

"I must show you a picture upstairs--"

Here the door-bell rang. The hansom had come to take them to their
evening party.

"Oh, bother, not to say dash--I had forgotten we were dining out; but
do, do, come round again and have a talk." "Yes, you must--do," echoed
Margaret.

Leonard, with extreme sentiment, replied: "No, I shall not. It's better
like this."

"Why better?" asked Margaret.

"No, it is better not to risk a second interview. I shall always look
back on this talk with you as one of the finest things in my life.
Really. I mean this. We can never repeat. It has done me real good, and
there we had better leave it."

"That's rather a sad view of life, surely."

"Things so often get spoiled."

"I know," flashed Helen, "but people don't."

He could not understand this. He continued in a vein which mingled true
imagination and false. What he said wasn't wrong, but it wasn't right,
and a false note jarred. One little twist, they felt, and the instrument
might be in tune. One little strain, and it might be silent for ever. He
thanked the ladies very much, but he would not call again. There was a
moment's awkwardness, and then Helen said: "Go, then; perhaps you know
best; but never forget you're better than Jefferies." And he went. Their
hansom caught him up at the corner, passed with a waving of hands, and
vanished with its accomplished load into the evening.

London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night. Electric
lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares, gas-lamps in the
side streets glimmered a canary gold or green. The sky was a crimson
battlefield of spring, but London was not afraid. Her smoke mitigated
the splendour, and the clouds down Oxford Street were a delicately