world. Theories! Theories are for the unknown and
the unhappy. Who will trouble to theorise about Heaven when he has
found Heaven itself? Theories are for the poor-devil outcast,--for him
who stands outside the confectioner's shop of life without a penny in
his pocket, while the radiant purchasers pass in and out through the
doors,--for him who watches with wistful eyes this and that sugared
marvel taken out of the window by mysterious hands, to bless some happy
customer inside. He is not fool enough even to hope for one of those
glistering masterpieces of frosted sugar and silk flowers, which rise
to pinnacles of snowy sweetness, white mountains of blessedness, rich
inside, they say, with untold treasures for the tooth that is sweet.
No! he craves nothing but a simple Bath-bun of happiness, and even that
is denied him.

Would I ever find my Bath-bun? I disconsolately asked myself. I had
been seeking it now for some little time, and seemed no nearer than
when I set out. I had seen a good many Bath-buns on my pilgrimage, it
is true. Some I have not had space to confide to the reader; but
somehow or other they had not seemed the unmistakably predestined for
which I was seeking.

And oh, how I could love a girl, if she would only give me the
chance,--that is, be the right girl! Oh, Sylvia Joy! where art thou?
Why so long dost thou remain hidden "in shady leaves of destiny"?

"Seest thou thy lover lowly laid,
Hear'st thou the sighs that rend his breast?"

And then, as the novelists say, "a strange thing happened."

The road I was tramping at the moment was somewhat desolate. It ran up
from a small market town through a dreary undulating moorland, forking
off here and there to unknown villages of which the horizon gave no
hint. Its cheerless hillocks were all but naked of vegetation, for a
never very flourishing growth of heather had recently been burnt right
down to the unkindly-looking earth, leaving a dwarf black forest of
charred sticks very grim to the eye and heart; while the dull surface
of a small lifeless-looking lake added the final touch to the Dead-Sea
mournfulness of the prospect.

Suddenly I became aware of the fluttering of a grey dress a little
ahead of me. Unconsciously I had been overtaking a tall young woman
walking in the same direction as myself, with a fine athletic carriage
of her figure and a noble movement of her limbs.

She walked manfully, and as I neared her I could he