him away and left the pair standing where the level sun slanted
through the willows--"that young man," she repeated, turning for a last
wave of the hand to the girl in the sunbonnet, "is 'e a bit touched in
'is 'ead, now?"

The dusk gathered as they retraced their way along Avon bank, and by the
time they reached the fair meadow the shows were hanging out their
lights. The children gave the field a wide berth, and fetching a
circuit, reached a grey stone bridge over which the road led into the
town.

They crossed it. They were now in Stratford, in a street lit with
gas-lamps and lined with bright shop-windows; and Tilda had scarcely
proceeded a dozen yards before she turned, aware of something wrong with
the boy. In truth, he had never before made acquaintance with a town at
night. Lamps and shop-fronts alike bewildered him. He had halted,
irresolute. He needed her hand to pilot him.

She gave it, puzzled; for this world so strange to him was the world she
knew best. She could not understand what ailed him. But it was
characteristic of Tilda that she helped first and asked questions
afterwards, if she asked them at all. Usually she found that, given
time, they answered themselves. It was well, perhaps, that she asked
none now. For how could the boy have explained that he seriously
believed these shops and lighted windows to be Eastcheap, Illyria,
Verona, and these passers-by, brushing briskly along the pavements, to
be Shakespeare's people--the authentic persons of the plays? He halted,
gazing, striving to identify this figure and that as it hurried between
the lights. Which was Mercutio ruffling to meet a Capulet? Was this
the watch passing?--Dogberry's watch? That broad-shouldered man--could
he be Antonio, Sebastian's friend, lurking by to his seaport lodging?
. . .

They were deep in the town, when he halted with a gasp and a start that
half withdrew his hand from her clasp. A pale green light shone on his
face. It shone out on the roadway from a gigantic illuminated bottle in
a chemist's shop; and in the window stood three similar bottles, each
with a gas-jet behind it--one yellow, one amethystine violet, one ruby
red.

His grip, relaxed for a second, closed on her fingers again. He was
drawing her towards the window. They stared through it together, almost
pressing their faces to the pane.

Beyond it, within the shop, surrounded by countless spotlessly polished
bottles, his features reflec