it find where the waters slide and shift, and the fishes twist, and the
reeds tangle?"

"Rest."

"Where satins shimmer not, and gems are few, save those bled from the
heart of despair--frozen in flowing...."

"The rarest----"

"Where no song ever swells, and the dirge of the river pleads and pleads
for the soul of faith murdered...."

"And saves it."

"Doth love come here to find rest that no earth could give, here, in the
cradle of the weeds: to wear jewels, rarer than rubies of the crown,
tears of passion, ice-bound and spurned? Doth it come to sing the
river's anthem, to wash itself white and holy, and save its soul for
ever?"

"It comes."

* * * * *

Close by among the rushes a wood pigeon stirred in its sleep and cooed,
and the river at the foot of the house-boat step yawned like a bath of
silver, pale and cold. Over the gulf swayed the warm, white body of a
dreaming woman. Her arms were flung out, and a soft sob, sweeter than
the dove's note, a sob of rest and rapture and realisation broke from
her lips.

* * * * *

Far across the fields, the note of the chanticleer rang out; the gulf
closed, the porch of the house-boat stood empty, and the moon and the
stars paled at what they had seen. Then they hid their heads and wept in
the dawn.

Peach Bloom.

"'Twas only a dream--a boy's first passion,
A foolish love, and a mock of bliss."

I.

His first love; this is what his heart called her. But his head and a
poignant memory offered many negations. There was, for instance, the
girl who sold papers outside bounds, when fourteen-year-old
effervescence converted a toast-and-water emotion into an intoxicating
passion. And his best chum, Harry's sister, whom he had never seen, but
whose photograph had lodged in his breast pocket--she, for a short time,
had presided in that revolutionary area called his heart. He had the
photograph still, with its central yellowy patches, which betrayed
repeated collisions with an ardent nose above the place aimed at by his
moustacheless lips. When the down began to grow like the feathers on a
nestling bird, there had been someone else--a fairy all gauze and wings,
a chameleon creature that changed her soft transparencies under the
magic of limelight for a limited sum nightly during the pantomime
season. Being somewhat of an idealist, his mind retained the fairy
element in spite of rather harsh