IN A GARDEN. 
179 
" low and wren-like warblings," I imagined, would 
suit my mood and the genial morning better 
than the stirring or subtle thoughts of greater 
singers. Possibly in that I was mistaken ; for 
there until now lie the books neglected on a 
cane chair within reach of my hand. The chair 
was dragged hither half-an-hour ago by a maiden 
all in white, who appeared half inclined to share 
the mulberry shade with me. She did not con- 
tinue long in that mind. In a lively manner, she 
began speaking of some trivial thing ; but after 
a very few moments all interest in the subject 
evaporated, and she sat humming some idle air, 
tapping the turf with her fantastic shoe. Presently 
she picked up one of my books, opened it at random 
and read a line or two, her vermillion under-lip 
curling slightly ; then threw it down again, and 
glanced at me out of the corners of her eyes ; then 
hummed again, and finally became silent, and sat 
bending forward a little, her dark lustrous eyes 
gazing with strange intentness through the slight 
screen of foliage into the vacant space beyond. What 
to see ? The poet has omitted to tell us to what 
the maiden's fancy lightly turns in spring. Doubt- 
less it turns to thoughts of something real. Life 
is real ; so is passion — the quickening of the blood, 
the wild pulsation. But the pleasures and pains 
of the printed book are not real, and are to reality 
