rward beneath my hat in eagerness to descry some living
creature a little bigger than these conies and squirrels, to prove me
yet in lands inhabited. But the sun was wheeling headlong, and the
stillness of late afternoon on the woods, when, dusty and parched and
heavy, we came to a break in the thick foliage, and presently to a
green gate embowered in box.

III

_Thou art so true, that thoughts of thee suffice
To make dreams truth, and fables histories._

--JOHN DONNE.

I dismounted and, with the nose of my beast in my bosom, stood awhile
gazing, in the half-dream weariness brings, across the valley at the
dense forests that covered the hills. And while thus standing,
doubtful whether to knock at the little gate or to ride on, it began
to open, and a great particoloured dog looked out on us. There was
certainly something unusual in the aspect of this animal, for though
he lifted on us grave and sagacious eyes, he scarcely seemed to see
us, manifested neither pleasure nor disapproval, neither wagged his
tail to give us welcome nor yawned to display his armament. He seemed
a kind of dream-dog, a dog one sees without zeal, and sees again
partly with the eye, but most in recollection.

Thus however we stood, stranger, horse, and dog, till a morose voice
called somewhere from beyond, "Pilot, sir, come here, Pilot." Semi-dog
or no, he knew his master. Whereupon, tying up my dejected Rosinante
to a ring in the gateway, I followed boldly after "Pilot" into that
sequestered garden.

Meanwhile, however, he had disappeared--down a thick green alley to
the left, I supposed. So I went forward by a clearer path, and when I
had advanced a few paces, met face to face a lady whose dark eyes
seemed strangely familiar to me.

She was evidently a little disquieted at meeting a stranger so
unceremoniously, but stood her ground like a small, black, fearless
note of interrogation.

I explained at once, therefore, as best I could, how I came to be
there: described my journey, my bewilderment, and how that I knew not
into what country nor company fate had beguiled me, except that the
one was beautiful, and the other in some delightful way familiar, and
I begged her to tell me where I really was, and how far from home,
and of whom I was now beseeching forgiveness.

Her thoughts followed my every word, passing upon her face like
shadows on the sea. I have never seen a listener so completely still
and so completely