the
spirit of the dead lover. "Forgive me," she besought him, "for I am old,
and life is gray to friendless girls." The pardon she wanted was for
pretending to her daughter that women should act thus.

I am sure she felt herself soiled.

But men are of a coarser clay. At least I am, and nearly twenty years
had elapsed, and here was I burdened under a load of affection, like a
sack of returned love-letters, with no lap into which to dump them.

"They were all written to another woman, ma'am, and yet I am in hopes
that you will find something in them about yourself." It would have
sounded oddly to Mary, but life is gray to friendless girls, and
something might have come of it.

On the other hand, it would have brought her for ever out of the wood of
the little hut, and I had but to drop the letter to send them both back
there. The easiness of it tempted me.

Besides, she would tire of me when I was really known to her. They all
do, you see.

And, after all, why should he lose his laugh because I had lost my
smile?

And then, again, the whole thing was merely a whimsical idea.

I dropped the letter, and shouldered my burden.

XI. The Runaway Perambulator

I sometimes met David in public places such as the Kensington Gardens,
where he lorded it surrounded by his suite and wearing the blank face
and glass eyes of all carriage-people. On these occasions I always
stalked by, meditating on higher things, though Mary seemed to think me
very hardhearted, and Irene, who had become his nurse (I forget how,
but fear I had something to do with it), ran after me with messages,
as, would I not call and see him in his home at twelve o'clock, at which
moment, it seemed, he was at his best.

No, I would not.

"He says tick-tack to the clock," Irene said, trying to snare me.

"Pooh!" said I.

"Other little 'uns jest says 'tick-tick,'" she told me, with a flush of
pride.

"I prefer 'tick-tick,'" I said, whereat she departed in dudgeon.

Had they had the sense to wheel him behind a tree and leave him, I would
have looked, but as they lacked it, I decided to wait until he could
walk, when it would be more easy to waylay him. However, he was a
cautious little gorbal who, after many threats to rise, always seemed to
come to the conclusion that he might do worse than remain where he was,
and when he had completed his first year I lost patience with him.

"When I was his age," I said to Irene, "I was running about." I