Olalla's chamber, the
meetings on the stair, the broken window, the ugly scene of the bite,
were all given me in bulk and detail as I have tried to write them; to
this I added only the external scenery (for in my dream I never was
beyond the court), the portrait, the characters of Felipe and the
priest, the moral, such as it is, and the last pages, such as, alas!
they are. And I may even say that in this case the moral itself was
given me; for it arose immediately on a comparison of the mother and the
daughter, and from the hideous trick of atavism in the first. Sometimes
a parabolic sense is still more undeniably present in a dream; sometimes
I cannot but suppose my Brownies have been aping Bunyan, and yet in no
case with what would possibly be called a moral in a tract; never with
the ethical narrowness; conveying hints instead of life's larger
limitations and that sort of sense which we seem to perceive in the
arabesque of time and space.

For the most part, it will be seen, my Brownies are somewhat fantastic,
like their stories hot and hot, full of passion and the picturesque,
alive with animating incident; and they have no prejudice against the
supernatural. But the other day they gave me a surprise, entertaining me
with a love-story, a little April comedy, which I ought certainly to
hand over to the author of "A Chance Acquaintance," for he could write
it as it should be written, and I am sure (although I mean to try) that
I cannot.--But who would have supposed that a Brownie of mine should
invent a tale for Mr. Howells?

IV

BEGGARS

I

In a pleasant, airy, up-hill country, it was my fortune when I was young
to make the acquaintance of a certain beggar. I call him beggar, though
he usually allowed his coat and his shoes (which were open-mouthed,
indeed) to beg for him. He was the wreck of an athletic man, tall,
gaunt, and bronzed; far gone in consumption, with that disquieting smile
of the mortally stricken on his face; but still active afoot, still with
the brisk military carriage, the ready military salute. Three ways led
through this piece of country; and as I was inconstant in my choice, I
believe he must often have awaited me in vain. But often enough, he
caught me; often enough, from some place of ambush by the roadside, he
would spring suddenly forth in the regulation attitude, and launching at
once into his inconsequential talk, fall into step with me upon my
farther course. "A fine morn