a something happened which,
small as I was, never quite shook itself out of my memory. To us at
parley in an arbour over the high road, there entered, slouching into
view, a dingy tramp, satellited by a frowsy woman and a pariah dog;
and, catching sight of us, he set up his professional whine; and I
looked at my friend with the heartiest compassion, for I knew well from
Martha--it was common talk--that at this time of day he was certainly
and surely penniless. Morn by morn he started forth with pockets lined;
and each returning evening found him with never a sou. All this he
proceeded to explain at length to the tramp, courteously and even
shamefacedly, as one who was in the wrong; and at last the gentleman of
the road, realising the hopelessness of his case, set to and cursed him
with gusto, vocabulary, and abandonment. He reviled his eyes, his
features, his limbs, his profession, his relatives and surroundings; and
then slouched off, still oozing malice and filth. We watched the party
to a turn in the road, where the woman, plainly weary, came to a stop.
Her lord, after some conventional expletives demanded of him by his
position, relieved her of her bundle, and caused her to hang on his arm
with a certain rough kindness of tone, and in action even a dim
approach to tenderness; and the dingy dog crept up for one lick at her
hand.

'See,' said my friend, bearing somewhat on my shoulder, 'how this
strange thing, this love of ours, lives and shines out in the
unlikeliest of places! You have been in the fields in early morning?
Barren acres, all! But only stoop--catch the light thwartwise--and all
is a silver network of gossamer! So the fairy filaments of this strange
thing underrun and link together the whole world. Yet it is not the old
imperious god of the fatal bow--[Greek: eros anikate machan]--not
that--nor even the placid respectable [Greek: storge]--but something
still unnamed, perhaps more mysterious, more divine! Only one must stoop
to see it, old fellow, one must stoop!'

The dew was falling, the dusk closing, as I trotted briskly homewards
down the road. Lonely spaces everywhere, above and around. Only Hesperus
hung in the sky, solitary, pure, ineffably far-drawn and remote; yet
infinitely heartening, somehow, in his valorous isolation.

SNOWBOUND

TWELFTH-NIGHT had come and gone, and life next morning seemed a trifle
flat and purposeless. But yester-eve, and the mummers were here! They
had come s