A few days later I started for the back-woods, with Wordsworth packed in my trunk, he being the writer most congenial to my present state of mind. Once seated in the cars, I looked with pleasure on each pastoral scene as it came into view, and gazed at the milkmaids while thinking romantically of my love. I took a nap, and awoke respectfully pressing the handle of my portmanteau and murmuring a proposal to my wild flower. It was late when I arrived at the little village near which my friend resided, and I resolved to spend the night at the modest inn of the place. The gay singing of birds, mingled with the ringing of Sunday bells, caused my drowsy eyes to open on the morrow. A happy thought came to me as I lay enjoying the delightful freshness of all around me: "I will go to church: my little Innocence will be there. I know she is pious. As unconscious as the birds, and with as sweet a voice, she will, like them, be praising her Maker this bright morning." I began to dress, looking each moment from the window with the hope that she might pass by. The street was quiet--no one to be seen. Presently, from a house near, tripped two pretty girls, and I eagerly came forward to see them. "If it is not my rose herself," I thought, "it maybe some relation--cousin, sister, friend: I am interested in the whole town since _she_ lives here." The girls came nearer. They walked without affectation: you could imagine that the spirit of Modesty herself had taught them that quiet demeanor. Suddenly they looked up and saw me. Am I Mephistopheles, to produce such a dire effect? They looked down, they simpered, they laughed a laugh that was not natural: their voices grew louder. "_Did_ you see him?" said one. "So perfectly lovely!" said the other. "I wonder who he is?" remarked the first. "My fate," I muttered as I turned away. After breakfast I sallied forth, humming "Pure as the Snow." Taking a reconnoissance of the town, I came to a pretty house with woodbine-covered porch, and a slender figure at the window. "I will not startle her with a rude glance," thought I, for I could see without appearing to look. As my step resounded the figure turned. "Oh, do come here, Jessie! Who _can_ he be?" said the slender figure to some one inside. I raised my eyes slowly, and my hat. "Could you tell me the way to Mr. Hearty's?" I asked, not thinking of any other excuse for speaking to her. Blushing, she told me. "And might I ask you," looking beseechingly at her as a person who might be my future wife--"might I ask you to give me one of your roses?" "Take as many as you like," she said courteously. "I would rather you gave me one," with a smile. She hesitated for an instant, then quickly plucked a bud from the side of the open window, threw it to me and ran away. "I shall find _my_ Rose later," sighed I. I sauntered on to church, a pretty little building of mossy gray stone, and seated myself on a shady bench under the elms to watch the people assembling.