by chance she had forgotten to fasten her gown, I caught glimpses of a
bosom that was like two happy handfuls of wonderful white cherries...

She wore a marvellous little printed gown. And here I may say that I
have never to this day understood objections which were afterwards
raised against my early attachment to print. The only legitimate
attachment to print stuff, I was told, was to print stuff in the form
of blouse, tennis, or boating costume. Yet, thought I, I would rather
smuggle one of those little print gowns into my berth than all the
silks a sea-faring friend of mine takes the trouble to smuggle from far
Cathay. However, every one to his taste; for me,

No silken madam, by your leave,
Though wondrous, wondrous she be,
Can lure this heart--upon my sleeve--
From little pink-print Hebe.

For I found beneath that pretty print such a heart as seldom beats
beneath your satin, warm and wild as a bird's. I used to put my ear to
it sometimes to listen if it beat right. Ah, reader, it was like
putting your ear to the gate of heaven.

And once I made a song for her, which ran like this:--

There grew twin apples high on a bough
Within an orchard fair;
The tree was all of gold, I vow,
And the apples of silver were.

And whoso kisseth those apples high,
Who kisseth once is a king,
Who kisseth twice shall never die,
Who kisseth thrice--oh, were it I!--
May ask for anything.

Hebe blushed, and for answer whispered something too sweet to tell.

"Dear little head sunning over with curls," were I to meet you now,
what would happen? Ah! to meet you now were too painfully to measure
the remnant of my youth.

CHAPTER X

AGAIN ON FOOT--THE GIRLS THAT NEVER CAN BE MINE

Next morning I was afoot early, bent on my quest in right good earnest;
for I had a remorseful feeling that I had not been sufficiently
diligent the day before, had spent too much time in dreaming and
moralising, in which opinion I am afraid the reader will agree.

So I was up and out of the town while as yet most of the inhabitants
were in the throes of getting up. Somewhere too SHE, the Golden One,
the White Woman, was drowsily tossing the night-clothes from her limbs
and rubbing her sleepy eyes. William Morris's lovely song came into my
mind,--

'And midst them all, perchance, my love
Is waking, and doth gently move
And stretch her soft arms out to me,