Yeoman Patch--should I yield to the impulse--why not? My
eyes were fixed on the eddies. All of a sudden I shuddered; I thought I
saw heads in the pool; human bodies wallowing confusedly; eyes turned up
to heaven with hopeless horror; was that water, or--Where was the impulse
now? I raised my eyes from the pool, I looked no more upon it--I looked
forward, far down the stream in the distance. "Ha! what is that? I
thought I saw a kind of Fata Morgana, green meadows, waving groves, a
rustic home; but in the far distance--I stared--I stared--a Fata
Morgana--it was gone--"

I left the balustrade and walked to the farther end of the bridge, where
I stood for some time contemplating the crowd; I then passed over to the
other side with the intention of returning home; just half-way over the
bridge, in a booth immediately opposite the one in which I had formerly
beheld her, sat my friend, the old apple-woman, huddled up behind her
stall.

"Well, mother," said I, "how are you?" The old woman lifted her head
with a startled look.

"Don't you know me?" said I.

"Yes, I think I do. Ah, yes," said she, as her features beamed with
recollection, "I know you, dear; you are the young lad that gave me the
tanner. Well, child, got anything to sell?"

"Nothing at all," said I.

"Bad luck?"

"Yes," said I, "bad enough, and ill usage."

"Ah, I suppose they caught ye; well, child, never mind, better luck next
time; I am glad to see you."

"Thank you," said I, sitting down on the stone bench; "I thought you had
left the bridge--why have you changed your side?"

The old woman shook.

"What is the matter with you," said I, "are you ill?"

"No, child, no; only--"

"Only what? Any bad news of your son?"

"No child, no; nothing about my son. Only low, child--every heart has
its bitters."

"That's true," said I; "well, I don't want to know your sorrows; come,
where's the book?"

The apple-woman shook more violently than before, bent herself down, and
drew her cloak more closely about her than before. "Book, child, what
book?"

"Why, blessed Mary, to be sure."

"Oh, that; I ha'n't got it, child--I have lost it, have left it at home."

"Lost it," said I; "left it at home--what do you mean? Come, let me have
it."

"I ha'n't got it, child."

"I believe you have got it under your cloak."

"Don't tell any one, dear; don't--don't," and the apple-woman burst into
tears.

"What's the matter with you?" said I, starin