One can imagine the thrilling tales told round the fire towards night as the grim old warriors nestle cosily in the high wooden settle, while envious comrades watch them from afar. How heavily the poor wooden legs stump through the long, echoing corridors! Grey hairs, old wounds, the chill stiffness of decrepit age--well, thank God for their peaceful harbourage, where the weary limbs can rest in comfort. There is a sweet old spot just where the long Lime avenue leads to old Ranelagh, adjoining the little plots of garden ground cultivated by the pensioners. One golden afternoon in September, when a fresh, pleasant breeze was rippling the limes, a girl in brown came down the avenue, and, as she tripped past the gnarled and twisted tree-boles, the slanting sunbeams seemed to meet and envelop her, until her shabby frock became like Cinderella's robe, and the green and golden banners overhead were a canopy of glory above her. Who does not know the beauty of a lime avenue in the early autumn, when the very air is musical with faint soughing, and every leaf adds its tiny, vibrating voice to the universal symphony--when children and birds and sunshine, and all young living things, seem to have their own way, and play in unison. The girl was coming up from the river in the direction of old Ranelagh, and she was walking with so light and airy a step that one could have imagined it set to music--for her feet, which were very small and pretty, though, alas! shabbily shod, seemed scarcely to touch the ground. She was small, almost childish in stature, with a thin, erect little figure, and a pale oval face, framed in short, curly hair, and at first sight people always called her plain: "an insignificant, puny little thing"--that was what they said until they saw her eyes--and they were the most wonderful and _spirituelle_ eyes in the world. And after that they were not so sure of the plainness. For comparisons are odious, and there is no hard and fast rule with respect to feminine beauty; at least, tastes differ, and here and there a Philistine might be found who would be ready to swear that dark _spirituelle_ eyes, brimful of intelligence and animation, with a mirthful sparkle underneath, were worth a score of pink-and-white beauties, in spite of their fine complexions and golden hair. Just at the end of the avenue two old pensioners were sitting; and at the sight of them, and at the sound of their raised voices, the girl began smiling to herself. Then she stepped quietly across the grass, picking her way daintily, until only a tree divided her from the old men; and there she stood shaking with silent laughter.