ur hands in your lap, listening to the gabble of fools, while Mrs.
Rayner touches up a curl here and a frill there, from morning till
night, for ever and ever.

But now to other things, for indeed I am not in the fault-finding
mood you might suppose. Only, as you know well, I can always worry
about you, at any time.

Well, I have seen my wood-sprite again, this very morning. I could
not sleep after six, although I twice covered up my head with the
bed-clothes and made believe I was not awake; so I got up, and the
young sun was so beautiful, driving the mists out of the valley,
that I went out.

Between the flower garden and the park, there lies a shrubbery;
green paths wind in and out between high walls of box and laurel,
leading one at length to a little blue door in an old wall. Well, I
was stepping along between the evergreens as fast as the moss on the
pebbles would let me, swinging my hat round as I went, and singing
loudly, when I thought I heard footsteps round the bend of the path.
I turned the corner--nobody; only a little scrambling sound, and the
treacherous flutter of a branch in the laurel hedge. Of course I
immediately thought of poachers, and in my imagination already saw
Emilia Fletcher stretched a lifeless corpse upon the ground. I took
three backward steps, then paused. Silence and stillness reigned.

Pooh! thought I, it's nothing, and with a bold, swift step I walked
past the fearful spot. No sooner had I passed than there came
another crackle; I turned and beheld a luminous eye between the
branches. Whether I turned pale with fright or not, I cannot tell;
but a hand came forth, a foot, then, with considerable difficulty,
an entire body; and on the path before me stood my dishevelled
friend, covered with green dust and blushes.

"I have no excuse to offer," said he.

I laughed; there was nothing else to do.

"You did startle me," said I, "but I forgive you."

I did not ask him what he was doing in my shrubbery, nor did he
offer the least explanation.

"Are you going for a walk?" said he, simply, "and, if so, may I go
with you?"

I was glad enough, and we had taken a few steps forward when he
suddenly clapped his hands to his pockets.

"I shall have to get into the bush again," he cried, with rueful
face; "I must have dropped 'Peer Gynt.'"

And in he scrambled, returning triumphant with an exceedingly shabby
book.

We walked a full hour and a half, through the park, through the
woods