The birds dropped from the boughs on the turf around her so fearlessly
that one alighted amidst the flowers in the little basket at her feet.
There is a famous German poem, which I had read in my youth, called the
Maiden from Abroad, variously supposed to be an allegory of Spring, or
of Poetry, according to the choice of commentators: it seemed to me
as if the poem had been made for her. Verily, indeed, in her, poet
or painter might have seen an image equally true to either of those
adornments of the earth; both outwardly a delight to sense, yet both
wakening up thoughts within us, not sad, but akin to sadness.

I heard now a step behind me, and a voice which I recognized to be that
of Mr. Vigors. I broke from the charm by which I had been so lingeringly
spell-bound, hurried on confusedly, gained the wicket-gate, from which a
short flight of stairs descended into the common thoroughfare. And there
the every-day life lay again before me. On the opposite side, houses,
shops, church-spires; a few steps more, and the bustling streets! How
immeasurably far from, yet how familiarly near to, the world in which we
move and have being is that fairy-land of romance which opens out from
the hard earth before us, when Love steals at first to our side, fading
back into the hard earth again as Love smiles or sighs its farewell!

CHAPTER V.

And before that evening I had looked on Mr. Vigors with supreme
indifference! What importance he now assumed in my eyes! The lady with
whom I had seen him was doubtless the new tenant of that house in which
the young creature by whom my heart was so strangely moved evidently had
her home. Most probably the relation between the two ladies was that
of mother and daughter. Mr. Vigors, the friend of one, might himself be
related to both, might prejudice them against me, might--Here, starting
up, I snapped the thread of conjecture, for right before my eyes, on the
table beside which I had seated myself on entering my room, lay a card
of invitation:--

MRS. POYNTZ.
At Home,
Wednesday, May 15th.
Early.

Mrs. Poyntz,--Mrs. Colonel Poyntz, the Queen of the Hill? There, at her
house, I could not fail to learn all about the new comers, who could
never without her sanction have settled on her domain.

I hastily changed my dress, and, with beating heart, wound my way up the
venerable eminence.

I did not pass through the lane which led direct to Abbo