There are lots
of petticoats like that--"

"What was she like?" I asked through my agitation.

"Middle height, slim and fair, with red goldy hair and big blue eyes;
about thirty, I should say."

"The very same," I groaned, "there is no mistake; and now," I
continued, "I want you to sell me that petticoat and those stockings,"
and I took a couple of sovereigns from my purse. "I want to have them
to confront her with, when I do find her. Perhaps it will touch her
heart to think of the strange way in which I came by them; and you can
buy just as pretty ones again with the money," I added, as I noticed
the disappointment on her face at the prospect of thus losing her
finery.

"Well, it's a funny business, to be sure," she said, as still half
reluctantly she unpegged the coveted garments from the line; "but if
what you say 's true, I suppose you must have them."

The wanton wind had been so busily kissing them all the morning that
they were quite dry, so I was able to find room for them in my knapsack
without danger to the other contents; and, with a hasty good-day to
their recent possessor, I set off at full speed to find a secure nook
where I could throw myself down on the grass, and let loose the absurd
laughter that was dangerously bottled up within me; but even before I
do that it behoves me if possible to vindicate my sanity to the reader.

CHAPTER XVI

CLEARS UP MY MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF THE LAST CHAPTER

What a sane man should be doing carrying about with him a woman's
petticoat and silk stockings, may well be a puzzle to the most
intelligent reader.

Whim, sir, whim! and few human actions admit of more satisfactory
solution. Like Shylock, I'll say "It is my humour." But no! I'll be
more explanatory. This madcap quest of mine, was it not understood
between us from the beginning to be a fantastic whim, a poetical
wild-goose chase, conceived entirely as an excuse for being some time
in each other's company? To be whimsical, therefore, in pursuit of a
whim, fanciful in the chase of a fancy, is surely but to maintain the
spirit of the game. Now, for the purpose, therefore, of a romance that
makes no pretence to reasonableness, I had very good reasons for buying
that petticoat, which (the reasons, not the petticoat) I will now lay
before you.

I have been conscious all the way along through this pilgrimage of its
inevitable vagueness of direction, of my need of something definite,
some place, some