One lovely evening in the first of the summer Miss St. John had dismissed him earlier than usual, and he had wandered out for a walk. After a round of a couple of miles, he returned by a fir-wood, through which went a pathway. He had heard Mary St. John say that she was going to see the wife of a labourer who lived at the end of this path. In the heart of the trees it was growing very dusky; but when he came to a spot where they stood away from each other a little space, and the blue sky looked in from above with one cloud floating in it from which the rose of the sunset was fading, he seated himself on a little mound of moss that had gathered over an ancient stump by the footpath, and drew out his friend's papers. Absorbed in his reading, he was not aware of an approach till the rustle of silk startled him. He lifted up his eyes, and saw Miss St. John a few yards from him on the pathway. He rose. 'It's almost too dark to read now, isn't it, Robert?' she said. 'Ah!' said. Robert, 'I know this writing so well that I could read it by moonlight. I wish I might read some of it to you. You would like it.' 'May I ask whose it is, then? Poetry, too!' 'It's Mr. Ericson's. But I'm feared he wouldna like me to read it to anybody but myself. And yet--' 'I don't think he would mind me,' returned Miss St. John. 'I do know him a little. It is not as if I were quite a stranger, you know. Did he tell you not?' 'No. But then he never thought of such a thing. I don't know if it's fair, for they are carelessly written, and there are words and lines here and there that I am sure he would alter if he cared for them ae hair.' 'Then if he doesn't care for them, he won't mind my hearing them. There!' she said, seating herself on the stump. 'You sit down on the grass and read me--one at least.' 'You'll remember they were never intended to be read?' urged Robert, not knowing what he was doing, and so fulfilling his destiny. 'I will be as jealous of his honour as ever you can wish,' answered Miss St. John gaily. Robert laid himself on the grass at her feet, and read:-- MY TWO GENIUSES. One is a slow and melancholy maid: I know not if she cometh from the skies, Or from the sleepy gulfs, but she will rise Often before me in the twilight shade Holding a bunch of poppies, and a blade Of springing wheat: prostrate my body lies Before her on the turf, the while she ties A fillet of the weed about my head; And in the gaps of sleep I seem to hear A gentle rustle like the stir of corn, And words like odours thronging to my ear: 'Lie still, beloved, still until the morn; Lie still with me upon this rolling sphere, Still till the judgment--thou art faint and worn.'