le of fresh beech-leaves. Alas! I brought nothing
with me out of Fairy Land, but memories--memories. The great boughs of
the beech hung drooping around me. At my head rose its smooth stem, with
its great sweeps of curving surface that swelled like undeveloped limbs.
The leaves and branches above kept on the song which had sung me asleep;
only now, to my mind, it sounded like a farewell and a speedwell. I sat
a long time, unwilling to go; but my unfinished story urged me on. I
must act and wander. With the sun well risen, I rose, and put my arms as
far as they would reach around the beech-tree, and kissed it, and said
good-bye. A trembling went through the leaves; a few of the last drops
of the night's rain fell from off them at my feet; and as I walked
slowly away, I seemed to hear in a whisper once more the words: "I may
love him, I may love him; for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree."

CHAPTER V

"And she was smooth and full, as if one gush
Of life had washed her, or as if a sleep
Lay on her eyelid, easier to sweep
Than bee from daisy."
BEDDOIS' Pygmalion.

"Sche was as whyt as lylye yn May,
Or snow that sneweth yn wynterys day."
Romance of Sir Launfal.

I walked on, in the fresh morning air, as if new-born. The only thing
that damped my pleasure was a cloud of something between sorrow and
delight that crossed my mind with the frequently returning thought of my
last night's hostess. "But then," thought I, "if she is sorry, I could
not help it; and she has all the pleasures she ever had. Such a day as
this is surely a joy to her, as much at least as to me. And her life
will perhaps be the richer, for holding now within it the memory of what
came, but could not stay. And if ever she is a woman, who knows but
we may meet somewhere? there is plenty of room for meeting in the
universe." Comforting myself thus, yet with a vague compunction, as if
I ought not to have left her, I went on. There was little to distinguish
the woods to-day from those of my own land; except that all the wild
things, rabbits, birds, squirrels, mice, and the numberless other
inhabitants, were very tame; that is, they did not run away from me, but
gazed at me as I passed, frequently coming nearer, as if to examine
me more closely. Whether this came from utter ignorance, or from
familiarity with the human appearance of