' lion,
and St. Jerome's lion, and--and--and the Lion and the Unicorn----'

'He beat the Unicorn,' observed Harold dubiously, 'all round the town.'

'That _proves_ he was a good lion,' cried Edward triumphantly. 'But the
question is, how are you to tell 'em when you see 'em?'

'_I_ should ask Martha,' said Harold of the simple creed.

Edward snorted contemptuously, then turned to Charlotte. 'Look here,' he
said; 'let's play at lions, anyhow, and I'll run on to that corner and
be a lion,--I'll be two lions, one on each side of the road,--and you'll
come along, and you won't know whether I'm chained up or not, and
that'll be the fun!'

'No, thank you,' said Charlotte firmly; 'you'll be chained up till I'm
quite close to you, and then you'll be loose, and you'll tear me in
pieces, and make my frock all dirty, and p'raps you'll hurt me as well.
_I_ know your lions!'

'No, I won't, I swear I won't,' protested Edward. 'I'll be quite a new
lion this time--something you can't even imagine.' And he raced off to
his post. Charlotte hesitated--then she went timidly on, at each step
growing less Charlotte, the mummer of a minute, and more the anxious
Pilgrim of all time. The lion's wrath waxed terrible at her approach;
his roaring filled the startled air. I waited until they were both
thoroughly absorbed, and then I slipped through the hedge out of the
trodden highway, into the vacant meadow spaces. It was not that I was
unsociable, nor that I knew Edward's lions to the point of satiety; but
the passion and the call of the divine morning were high in my blood.
Earth to earth! That was the frank note, the joyous summons of the day;
and they could not but jar and seem artificial, these human discussions
and pretences, when boon nature, reticent no more, was singing that
full-throated song of hers that thrills and claims control of every
fibre. The air was wine, the moist earth-smell wine, the lark's song,
the wafts from the cow-shed at top of the field, the pant and smoke of
a distant train--all were wine--or song, was it? or odour, this unity
they all blent into? I had no words then to describe it, that
earth-effluence of which I was so conscious; nor, indeed, have I found
words since. I ran sideways, shouting; I dug glad heels into the
squelching soil; I splashed diamond showers from puddles with a stick; I
hurled clods skywards at random, and presently I somehow found myself
singing. The words were mere nonsense--irresponsib