It was true, after a fashion, that Lottie was ambitious in her dreams of love. Her lover must be heroic, handsome, a gentleman by birth, with something of romance about his story. A noble poverty might be more fascinating than wealth. There was but one thing absolutely needful: he must not be commonplace. It was the towering yet unsubstantial ambition of her age, a vision of impossible splendor and happiness. Most girls have such dreams: most women find at six or seven and twenty that their enchanted castles in the air have shrunk to brick-and-mortar houses. Tastes change, and they might even be somewhat embarrassed were they called on to play their parts in the passionate love-poems which they dreamed at seventeen. But the world was just opening before Lottie's eyes, and she was ready to be a heroine of romance. "This way," said Percival; and they turned into a narrow lane, deep and cool, with green banks overgrown with ferns, and arching boughs above. As they strolled along he gathered pale honeysuckle blossoms from the hedge, and gave them to Lottie. "How pretty it is!" said the girl, looking round. "Wait till you see the well," he replied. "We shall be there directly: it is prettier there." "But this is pretty too: why should I wait?" said Lottie. "You are right. I don't know why you should. Admire both: you are wiser than I, Lottie." As he spoke, the lane widened into a grassy glade, and Lottie quickened her steps, uttering a cry of pleasure. Percival followed her with a smile on his lips. "Here is your wishing-well," he said. "Do you like it, now that you have found it out?" She might well have been satisfied, even if she had been harder to please. It was a spring of the fairest water, bubbling into a tiny hollow. The little pool was like a brimming cup, with colored pebbles and dancing sand at the bottom, and delicate leaf-sprays clustered lightly round its rim. And this gem of sparkling water was set in a space of mossy sward, with trees which leant and whispered overhead, their quivering canopy pierced here and there by golden shafts of sunlight and glimpses of far-off blue. "It is like fairy-land," said Lottie. "Or like something in Keats's poems," Percival suggested. "I never read a line of them, so I can't say," she answered with defiant candor, while she inwardly resolved to get the book. He smiled: "You don't read much poetry yet, do you? Ah, well, you have time enough. How about wishing, now we are here?" he went on, stooping to look into the well. "Your wishes ought to have a double virtue on your birthday." "I only hope they may." "What! have you decided on something very important? Seventeen to-day! Lottie, don't wish to be eighteen: that will come much too soon without wishing." "I don't want to be eighteen. I think seventeen is old enough," she answered dreamily.