t wilderness of daffodils that are growing
upon the edge of the bank a little way down. How beautiful they are.
Their soft, delicate heads nod lazily this way and that way. They seem
the very embodiment of graceful drowsiness. Some lines lately read recur
to her, and awake within her memory;

"I wandered lonely as a cloud,
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A crowd of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."

They seem so full of lazy joy, or unutterable rapture, that they belie
her belief in the falseness of all things. There must surely be some
good in a world that grows such charming things--things almost sentient.
And the trees swaying about her head, and dropping their branches into
the stream, is there no delight to be got out of them? The tenderness of
this soft, sweet mood, in which perpetual twilight reigns, enters into
her, and soothes the sad demon that is torturing her breast. Tears rise
to her eyes; she leans still further over the parapet, and drawing the
pink and white hawthorn blossoms from her bosom, drops them one by one
into the hasty little river, and lets it bear them away upon its bosom
to tiny bays unknown. Tears follow them, falling from her drooping lids.
Can neither daffodils, nor birds, nor trees, give her some little of
their joy to chase the sorrow from her heart?

Her soul seems to fling itself outward in an appeal to nature; and
nature, that kind mother of us all, responds to the unspoken cry.

A step upon the bridge behind her! She starts into a more upright
position and looks round her without much interest.

A dark figure is advancing toward her. Through the growing twilight it
seems abnormally large and black, and Joyce stares at it anxiously. Not
Freddy--not one of the laborers--they would be all clad in flannel
jackets of a light color.

"Oh, is it you?" says Dysart, coming closer to her. He had, however,
known it was she from the first moment his eyes rested upon her. No
mist, no twilight could have deceived him, for--

Lovers' eyes are sharp to see
And lovers' ears in hearing."

"Yes," says she, advancing a little toward him and giving him her hand.
A cold little hand, and reluctant.

"I was coming down to Mrs. Monkton with a message--a letter--from Lady
Baltimore."

"This is a very long way round from the Court, isn't it?" says she.

"Yes. B