lls silent in the unattainable dawn.

"She pipes, he follows," said Reverie; "she sets the tune, he dances.
Yet, sir, on my soul, I believe it is the childish face of that same
Innocence we kept tryst with long ago he pursues on and on, through
what sad labyrinths we, who dream not so wildly, cannot by taking
thought come to guess."

* * * * *

The next two days passed serenely and quietly at Reverie's. We read
together, rode, walked, and talked together, and listened in the
evening to music. For a sister of Reverie's lived not far distant, who
visited him while I was there, and took supper with us, delighting us
with her wit and spirit and her youthful voice.

But though Reverie more than once suggested it, I could not bring
myself to return to the "World's End" and its garrulous company.
Whether it was the moist, grey face of Mr. Cruelty I most abhorred, or
Stubborn's slug-like eye, or the tongue-stump of my afflicted guide, I
cannot say.

Moreover, I had begun to feel a very keen curiosity to see the way
that had lured Christian on with such graceless obstinacy. They had
spoken of remorse, poverty, pride, world-failure, even insanity, even
vice: but these appeared to me only such things as might fret a man to
set violently out on, not to persist in such a course; or likelier
yet, to abandon hope, to turn back from heights that trouble or
confusion set so far, and made seem dreams.

How could I help, too, being amused to think how vastly strange these
fellows considered a man's venturing whither his star beckoned; though
that star were only power, only fame, only beauty, only peace? What
wonder they were many?

Not far from this place, Reverie informed me, were pitched the booths
of Vanity Fair. This, by his account, was a place one ought to visit,
if only for the satisfaction of leaving it behind. But I have heard
more animated accounts of it elsewhere.

As for Reverie himself, he seemed only desirous to contemplate; never
to taste, to win, or to handle. He needed but refuse reality to what
shocked or teased him, to find it harmless and entertaining. He was a
dreamer whom the heat and shout of battle could not offend.

Perhaps he perceived my restlessness to be gone, for he himself
suggested that I should stay till the next morning, and then, if I so
pleased, he would see me a mile or two on my way.

"For the Pitiless Lady," he said, smiling, "takes many disguises,
sometime