follow her forth into dew, coolness, and glory.

She brought upon me a strange vision of Villette at midnight.
Especially she showed the park, the summer-park, with its long alleys
all silent, lone and safe; among these lay a huge stone basin--that
basin I knew, and beside which I had often stood--deep-set in the
tree-shadows, brimming with cool water, clear, with a green, leafy,
rushy bed. What of all this? The park-gates were shut up, locked,
sentinelled: the place could not be entered.

Could it not? A point worth considering; and while revolving it, I
mechanically dressed. Utterly incapable of sleeping or lying
still--excited from head to foot--what could I do better than dress?

The gates were locked, soldiers set before them: was there, then, no
admission to the park?

The other day, in walking past, I had seen, without then attending to
the circumstance, a gap in the paling--one stake broken down: I now saw
this gap again in recollection--saw it very plainly--the narrow,
irregular aperture visible between the stems of the lindens, planted
orderly as a colonnade. A man could not have made his way through that
aperture, nor could a stout woman, perhaps not Madame Beck; but I
thought I might: I fancied I should like to try, and once within, at
this hour the whole park would be mine--the moonlight, midnight park!

How soundly the dormitory slept! What deep slumbers! What quiet
breathing! How very still the whole large house! What was the time? I
felt restless to know. There stood a clock in the classe below: what
hindered me from venturing down to consult it? By such a moon, its
large white face and jet black figures must be vividly distinct.

As for hindrance to this step, there offered not so much as a creaking
hinge or a clicking latch. On these hot July nights, close air could
not be tolerated, and the chamber-door stood wide open. Will the
dormitory-planks sustain my tread untraitorous? Yes. I know wherever a
board is loose, and will avoid it. The oak staircase creaks somewhat as
I descend, but not much:--I am in the carre.

The great classe-doors are close shut: they are bolted. On the other
hand, the entrance to the corridor stands open. The classes seem to my
thought, great dreary jails, buried far back beyond thoroughfares, and
for me, filled with spectral and intolerable Memories, laid miserable
amongst their straw and their manacles. The corridor offers a cheerful
vista, leading to the high vestibu