A RETURN TO NATURE 83 



in office and lodgings, I thought, had made me unfit for 

 her delicate ways. I turned away and the sunny ships 

 in the sea were mournful because of my thoughts. But I 

 could not wait. I told her my love. She was not angry 

 or indifferent. She did not reject it. She was afraid. 

 They sent her away to college. She overworked and 

 overplayed, and they have told me she is now a school- 

 mistress. I see her sad and firm with folded hands. 

 When I knew her she was tall and straight, with long 

 brown hair in two heavy plaits, a shining, rounded brow, 

 dark-lashed, grey eyes, and a smile of inexpressible sweet- 

 ness in which I once or twice surprised her, pleased with 

 the happiness and beauty of her thoughts and of Nature. 

 " When I had lost her, or thought I had — 



Not comforted to live 

 But that there is this jewel in the world 

 Which I may see again 



I resolved that I would not be a slave any more. For 

 a few weeks I used to fancy it was only by a chance I 

 had lost her, and every now and then as I mused over it 

 I got heated and my thoughts raced forward as if in the 

 hope of overtaking and averting that very evil chance 

 which had already befallen, and had in fact caused the 

 train of thought. 



*' I saved every penny that I could from my salary. 

 In six months I had saved twenty pounds. Out of this 

 I bought a new black suit, a pair of boots and a hat, and 

 gave them to my landlady and asked her to take care of 

 them until I returned, which might be at the end of 

 October. It was then April. I gave notice to my 

 employers and left them. The next day very early I 

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