AN UNDISCOVERED ISLAND. 



179 



lind s finger the index of our wanderings sud 

 denly pauses and rests on an island, not large, as it 

 lies amid that silent sea, but wonderful above all 

 islands to which thought has ever wandered or where 

 imagination has ever made its home. Under the light 

 of the lamp, with Rosalind s face bending over it, 

 no island ever slept in a deeper calm than this little 

 circle of land about which the greatest of the poets 

 once evoked the most marvelous of tempests. 

 Rosalind s finger does not move from that magical 

 point, and, peering on the chart, our eyes suddenly 

 meet, and a single thought is in them all. Why 

 not postpone Arden for the moment and explore 

 the isle of Miranda s morning beauty and Pros- 

 pero s magical wisdom ? 



&quot;Why not?&quot; says Rosalind, speaking aloud, and 

 instead of answering her question the Poet and I 

 are wondering why we have never gone before. 

 Straightway we fall to studying the map more 

 closely ; we note the latitude and longitude ; it is 

 but a little way from the mainland where stretches 

 the green expanse of the Forest of Arden. We 

 might have gone long ago if we had been a little 

 more adventurous ; at least we think we might at 

 the first blush ; but when we talk it over, as we 

 proceed to do when Rosalind has rolled up the chart 

 and put it in its place, we are not quite so sure 

 about it. It is one of the singular things about this 

 kind of journeying that one learns how to travel 

 and where to go only by personal observation. Be- 



