dge, and
fixing her eyes on the water as it rippled past the nearer bank, might
enjoy, for the hour, the full sensation of one who floats in a boat
along a stream, and watches the trees and grasses of the shore. The
place was quiet enough, and rich enough in trees and shrubs, and little
reeds quivering out of the water, to seem, at least in Minola's pleased
eyes, like a spot on the bank of the canal far in the country, while
yet there was to her the peculiar and keen delight of knowing herself
in London. Sometimes, too, a canal boat came gliding along, steered by
a stalwart and sunburnt woman in a great straw bonnet, and the boat and
the woman brought wild and delicious ideas of far-off country places,
with woods and gipsies, and fresh, half savage, half poetic life.
Minola extracted beautiful pictures and much poetry and romance from
that little bridge over the discolored canal, creeping through the
heart of London.

The population of London--even its idlers--usually move along in tracks
and grooves. Where some go, others go; where few go, at last none go.
It is wonderful what hours of almost absolute solitude Minola was able
to enjoy in the midst of Regent's Park. Voices, indeed, constantly
reached her: the cries and laughter of children, the shoutings of
cricketers, the dulled clamor of the metropolis itself. These reached
her as did the bleating of sheep and the tinkle of their bells, the
barking of dogs, and occasionally the fierce, hoarse, thrilling growl
or roar of some disturbed or impatient animal in the Zooelogical Gardens
near at hand. But many and many a time Minola lounged for half an hour
on her little knoll or on her chosen bridge, without seeing more of man
or woman than of the lions in their cages on the other side of the
enclosure. There was a particular hour of the day, too, when the park
in general was especially deserted, and it appears almost needless to
say that this was the time selected usually by Miss Grey for her
rambles. It was sometimes a curious, half sensuous pleasure for her
thus alone, amid the murmur of the trees, to fancy herself, for the
moment, back again within sight of the mausoleum at Keeton, where she
had spent so many weary and solitary hours, and then, awaking, to
rejoice anew in her freedom and in London.

It was a fortunate and kindly destiny which assigned to our heroine a
poetess for a companion. Much as she loved occasional solitude, Minola
loved still better the spirit