I said it was too early yet, but even as I spoke, a heaviness not to be conquered by will, pressed down my eyelids. He urged the point and I yielded. How soon I slept that night; how long, deep and peaceful were my slumbers! how light and happy I felt when the morning sun awoke me, and opening my window, I drank in with delight the air still cool with the dews of night. I came down in a happy mood, and ran out to join Cornelius in the garden. He stood by the pine tree, smoking and looking at the sea in a fit of abstraction so deep, that he never heard me, until I passed my arm within his, and said: "How are you to-day?" "Quite well, child." "Then let us have a good, long walk," I said eagerly. "Let us visit once more our old haunts, and take a few green images to smoky London. Shall we?" "As you please, Daisy." "I do please. I have a pastoral longing for breezy freshness, lanes, dells, and streams flowing in the shade. So let as go in to breakfast." He yielded, but with little sympathy for my impatience, he lingered at the meal for an hour and more. When I sought to hurry him, he invariably replied: "There is time enough." I went up to dress; when I came down again, I found him in the garden, walking up and down the path. I joined him, and said "I was quite ready." "Are you?" he quietly answered and continued his walk. I followed him, impatient at his dilatoriness; but he seemed in no haste, for as he might have spoken on any other morning, he said: "I like this garden, Daisy. Spite of the sea air, flowers seem to thrive here. I never saw a finer rose than this. Take it." He gathered it, and gave it to me as he spoke. I murmured a little. This rose was to have been the pride of the bouquet I meant to take to Kate. "There are plenty left," he replied, gathering a few more; then, looking at his watch, carelessly said: "It was time to go." I asked if we should take the path that led to the beach. "Why not go by Leigh, you were wishing for green fields!" "True; besides we can come back by the sands." He did not reply. I took his arm; we traversed the house, and went down the steep path, which had seen some of our first walks in the pleasant lanes and meadows of Leigh. "Only think," I observed after a while, "I have brought the flowers you gave me. They will be quite withered by the time we are home again." Cornelius stopped abruptly, and held me back. "Mind that stone," he said, "you might have hurt yourself. Why did you not look before you?" "Because I feel as if I trod on air," I replied gaily, "and when one feels so, it seems quite ridiculous to trouble one's self with stones, &c. I don't know when I have been in a mood so light and happy. I feel as if this green lane need have no end or turning, and this pleasant day no sunset."