gleamed drowsily from beneath their drooping lids,--and the lips parted, smiling--and then--then came the devil and tempted me! I was no longer middle-aged John Walden, the quiet parson of a country 'cure,'--I was a man unknown to myself,--possessed as it were, by the ghost of a dead youth, clamouring for youthful joy! I longed to touch that delicate little pink-and-white creature, so like a rose herself!--I was moved by an insane desire--yes!--it was insane, and fortunately quite momentary,--such impulses are not uncommon"--and here, as he unravelled, to his own satisfaction, the tangled web of his impressions, his brow cleared, and he smiled gravely,--"I was, I say, moved by an insane desire to draw that dainty small bundle of frippery and prettiness into my arms--yes,--it was so, and why should I not confess it to myself? Why should I be ashamed? Other men have felt the same, though perhaps they do not count so many years of life as I do. At any rate with me the feeling was momentary,--and passed. Then,--some moments later,--under the cedar- tree she dropped a rose from the cluster she had gathered,--and in giving it back to her I touched her hand--and our eyes met." Here his thoughts became disconnected, and wandered beyond his control. He let them go,--and listened, instead of thinking, to the notes of the nightingale singing in his garden. It was now being answered by others at a distance, with incessant repetitions of a flute-like warble,--and then came the long sobbing trill and cry of love, piercing the night with insistant passion. "The Bird of Life is singing on the bough, His two eternal notes of 'I and Thou'-- O hearken well, for soon the song sings through, And would we hear it, we must hear it Now." A faint tremor shook him as the lines quoted by Cicely Bourne rang back upon his memory. He rose to go indoors. "I am a fool!"--he said--"I must not trouble my head any more about a summer day's fancy. It was a kind of 'old moonlight in the blood,' as Hafiz says,--an aching sense of loss,--or rather a touch of the spring affecting a decaying tree!" He sighed. "I shall not suffer from it again, because I will not. Brent's letter has arrived opportunely,--though I think--nay, I am sure, he has been misinformed. However, Miss Vancourt's affairs have nothing to do with me,--nor need I interest myself in what is not my concern. My business is with those who depend on my care,--I must not forget myself--I must attend to my work." He went into the house,--and there was confronted in his own hall by a big burly figure clad in rough corduroys,--that of Farmer Thorpe, who doffed his cap and pulled his forelock respectfully at the sight of him.