over Euclid if I chose,
but I hated him and all his propositions. The winter came: I worked
hard; I had found my deficiencies in conversation with my fascinating
deceiver--and the more my mind enlarged, the more it dwelt on the
thousand charms of thought and expression that had passed unheeded at
the time. I could recall every look, every smile, every tone; and when
the early leaves began to bud, when the grass was green again, and the
snow had disappeared from the highest hills, I had made up my mind that
without Betsy Juffles, flirt or no flirt, life was not worth having;
and I resolved to find her out, wherever she was, and tell her so. Mr
Dobble informed me that Mr Juffles resided in a bow-windowed villa near
Bushy Park, called Verbena Lodge; and thither I determined to go. My
father wished me to go to London to make arrangements for beginning the
study of the law, and in the early weeks of March I found myself in the
great city; but though I saw St Paul's, Westminster Abbey, and the
Temple and the Tower, with my bodily eyes, my thoughts dwelt for ever on
the bow-windowed villa near Bushy Park. I left the smoke, the noise, and
all chances of the wealth of modern Rome, behind me, and installed
myself in a comfortable lodging at Hampton Wick. I became one of the
rangers of Bushy Park, without the queen's signature to my appointment.
I passed and repassed Verbena Lodge, but saw nobody at the windows; I
meditated even on the expediency of making my way into the house, on
pretence of a message from Mr Dobble; when----once upon a time in the
merry month of May, beneath a stately tree, musing and alone, I say, in
the heart of Bushy Park, the unmistakable figure--the unmistakable face
of Lucy Ashton, radiant, smiling, beautiful as of old.

"I thought you wouldn't forget me quite," she said, and held out her
hand.

"I was an ass--a fool!" I began.

"But you have grown wiser now?" she enquired.

"Yes, wise enough to despise balls, Jeekses, officers--and throw myself
at once and for ever at the feet of Lucy Ashton."

"What will Betsy Juffles say?"

"I hope she'll say _yes_."

"Well, perhaps I may answer for her--I don't see what right _she_ has to
object to any thing that pleases _me_."

"She's a charming girl, and I hope you will be guided by her in every
thing."

"Such as?"--she asked with a smile that made us feel we had never
quarreled, never parted, but were at home in the Wilderness. I need not
tell the answ