140 IDLEHURST : 



hair-ribbon, the Jacob's-laddered stocking of the long 

 play-days ; the shell necklace and morocco shoes of 

 party-nights. We used to swing together, her hair 

 blowing across my face on the breathless downward 

 stoop ; blackberried together ; in the hush of warm 

 summer sermon-times dissected our Sunday posies ; 

 she would be very contemptuous towards my struggles 

 with ruTrrw, on the strength of her French irregular 

 verbs, when the schoolroom grew dark in the winter 

 afternoons, and the far-off muffin-bell brought the 

 thought of tea and the end of labours. I must have 

 been a shy and awkward lover ; she, I think, would 

 have grown into a coquette : neither for her teasing 

 nor her friendliness (and which was sweeter I could 

 never say) did I ever tell my devotion. There was 

 always an intangible bound, beyond which our wildest 

 play never led us ; only once, when she dared me to 

 shake hands with her through the quickset hedge 

 which divided our gardens, and I drove my bare arm 

 through the worst of the pricks, and felt both her 

 hands grasp mine, might the world have been turned 

 upside down. But I let the moment go ; something 

 on the instant grew between us more impenetrable 

 than all the hedges of the world, and that love-passage 

 was over. When Bab and her people went away to 

 live in Devonshire, I was left miserable, no doubt, but 



