evening song of thrush and blackbird. As he progressed, the
leaping rill grew to a gurgling brook, widened to a splashing stream,
hurrying over pebbly bed until it deepened to a slumberous pool spanned
by a rustic bridge.

Evening was at hand and the westering sun cast long shadows making of
these drowsy waters a pool of sombre mystery. Being upon the bridge
the Major paused to look down into these stilly depths and, leaning
well over the handrail, to survey himself in this watery mirror--the
graceful fall of his lace steenkirk, the flowing curls of his glossy
peruke, the cock of his laced hat; all of which he observed with a
profound and grave attention. So lost and absorbed was he that he
leaned there quite unconscious of one that had halted just within the
wood, crouching furtively amid the leaves. A tall, burly,
gipsy-looking fellow this, who caressed a knotty bludgeon in hairy
fingers and whose narrowed eyes roved over the indolent, lolling figure
on the bridge from gemmed cravat to glittering shoe-buckles; once he
took a stealthy forward step, the knobby club a-swing in eager hand
but, heeding the wide spread of these plum-coloured shoulders, the
vigorous length of these resplendent limbs, scowled and crouched back
among the leaves again. Presently, the Major, having settled his hat
more to his liking, went on across the bridge and along a path that led
over a wide sweep of green meadow and so to another stile flanked by
high hedges. Here he paused again to watch a skylark hovering against
the blue and to catch the faint, sweet ripple of song. And leaning
there with gaze aloft, he fell to deep thought, turning over in his
mind a problem that had vexed him much of late, a problem he had
pondered by day and thought over by night, to wit:--

Could a feminine being blessed by a bounteous Nature in all the outward
attributes most desirable in womanhood, a face beyond compare and
goddess-shape, but one who had wantonly exposed that shape to public
regard clad in the baser garb of masculinity--could such a one be
worthy of a man's humble respect and reverent homage? Would his mother
(God rest her sweet soul) have thought her virginal? Would his aunt
Clarissa have endured her for a moment?

He sighed heavily and like an echo, came a sob and then another. He
started, and guided by these sounds, discovered a very small damsel who
wept bitterly, a huddled, woeful little figure in the grassy ditch
beneath th