with soft walks
of old turf, and in it grew all kinds of straight aspiring things:
their ambition seemed--to get up, not to spread abroad. He stepped out
of the window, drawn as by the enchantment of one of childhood's
dreams, and went wandering down a broad walk, his foot sinking deep in
the velvety grass, and the loveliness of the dream did not fade.
Hollyhocks, gloriously impatient, whose flowers could not wait to reach
the top ere they burst into the flame of life, making splendid blots of
colour along their ascending stalks, received him like stately dames of
faerie, and enticed him, gently eager for more, down the long walks
between rows of them--deep red and creamy white, primrose and yellow:
sure they were leading him to some wonderful spot, some nest of lovely
dreams and more lovely visions! The walk did lead to a bower of
roses--a bed surrounded with a trellis, on which they climbed and made
a huge bonfire--altar of incense rather, glowing with red and white
flame. It seemed more glorious than his brain could receive. Seeing
was hardly believing, but believing was more than seeing: though
nothing is too good to be true, many things are too good to be grasped.

"Poor misbelieving birds of God," he said to himself, "we hover about a
whole wood of the trees of life, venturing only here and there a peck,
as if their fruit might be poison, and the design of our creation was
our ruin! we shake our wise, owl-feathered heads, and declare they
cannot be the trees of life: that were too good to be true! Ten times
more consistent are they who deny there is a God at all, than they who
believe in a middling kind of God--except indeed that they place in him
a fitting faith!"

The thoughts rose gently in his full heart, as the flowers, one after
the other, stole in at his eyes, looking up from the dark earth like
the spirits of its hidden jewels, which themselves could not reach the
sun, exhaled in longing. Over grass which fondled his feet like the
lap of an old nurse, he walked slowly round the bed of the roses,
turning again towards the house. But there, half-way between him and
it, was the lady of the garden descending to meet him!--not ancient
like the garden, but young like its flowers, light-footed, and full of
life.

Prepared by her brother to be friendly, she met him with a pleasant
smile, and he saw that the light which shone in her dark eyes had in it
rays of laughter. She had a dark, yet clear complexi