ing was in sight, a man with
his back towards me, seated upon a bench overlooking the ornamental
water.

I drew nearer. He took no notice of me, and interested--though why, I
could not say--I seated myself beside him at the other end of the bench.
He was a handsome, distinguished-looking man, with wonderfully bright,
clear eyes and iron-grey hair and beard. I might have thought him a sea
captain, of whom many were always to be met with in that neighbourhood,
but for his hands, which were crossed upon his stick, and which were
white and delicate as a woman's. He turned his face and glanced at me.
I fancied that his lips beneath the grey moustache smiled; and
instinctively I edged a little nearer to him.

"Please, sir," I said, after awhile, "could you tell me the right time?"

"Twenty minutes to eight," he answered, looking at his watch. And his
voice drew me towards him even more than had his beautiful strong face.
I thanked him, and we fell back into silence.

"Where do you live?" he turned and suddenly asked me.

"Oh, only over there," I answered, with a wave of my arm towards the
chimney-fringed horizon behind us. "I needn't be in till half-past
eight. I like this Park so much," I added, "I often come and sit here of
an evening.'

"Why do you like to come and sit here?" he asked. "Tell me."

"Oh, I don't know," I answered. "I think."

I marvelled at myself. With strangers generally I was shy and silent;
but the magic of his bright eyes seemed to have loosened my tongue.

I told him my name; that we lived in a street always full of ugly
sounds, so that a gentleman could not think, not even in the evening
time, when Thought goes a-visiting.

"Mamma does not like the twilight time," I confided to him. "It always
makes her cry. But then mamma is--not very young, you know, and has had
a deal of trouble; and that makes a difference, I suppose."

He laid his hand upon mine. We were sitting nearer to each other now.
"God made women weak to teach us men to be tender," he said. "But you,
Paul, like this 'twilight time'?"

"Yes," I answered, "very much. Don't you?"

"And why do you like it?" he asked.

"Oh," I answered, "things come to you."

"What things?"

"Oh, fancies," I explained to him. "I am going to be an author when I
grow up, and write books."

He took my hand in his and shook it gravely, and then returned it to me.
"I, too, am a writer of books," he said.

And then I knew what had drawn me to h