_Andre_. A lady, well you would call her so perchance. Such ladies used to spring from the fairy nut-shells, in the old time, when the kings' son lacked a bride; and if this were Windsor forest that stretches about us here, I might fancy, perchance, some royal one had wandered out, to cool the day's glow in her cheek, and nurse her love-dream; but here, in this untrodden wilderness, unless your ladies here spring up like flowers, or drop down on invisible pinions from above, how, in the name of reason, came she here? _Mait_. On the invisible pinions of thine own lady-loving fancy; none otherwise, trust me. _Andre_. Come, come,--see for yourself. On my word I was a little startled though, as my eye first lighted on her, suddenly, in that lonesome spot. There she sat, so bright and still, like some creature of the leaves and waters, such as the old Greeks fabled, that my first thought was to worship her; my next--of you, but I could not leave the spot until I had sketched this; I stood unseen, within a yard of her; for I could see her soft breath stirring the while. See, the scene itself was a picture,--the dark glen, the lonesome little lodge, on the very margin of the fairy lake--here she sat, motionless as marble; this bunch of roses had dropped from her listless hand, and you would have thought some tragedy of ancient sorrow, were passing before her, in the invisible element, with such a fixed and lofty sadness she gazed into it. But of course, of course, it is nothing to _your_ eye; for me, it will serve to bring the whole out at my leisure. Indeed, the air, I think, I have caught a little as it is. _Mait_. A little--you may say it. She is there, is she?--sorrowful; well, what is't to me? _Andre_. What do you say?--There?--Yes, I left her there at least. Come, come. I'll show you one will teach you to unlearn this fixed contempt of gentle woman. Come. _Mait_. Let go, if you please, Sir. She who gave me my first lesson in that art, is scarcely the one to bid me now unlearn it, and I want no new teaching as yet, thank Heaven. Will you come? We have loitered here long enough, I think. _Andre_. What, under the blue scope--what the devil ails you, Maitland? _Mait_. Nothing, nothing. This much I'll say to you,--_that lady is my wife_. _Andre_. Nonsense! _Mait_. There lacked--three days, I think it was, three whole days, to the time when the law would have given her that name; but for all that, was she mine, and is; Heaven and earth cannot undo it. _Andre_. Are you in earnest? Why, are we not here in the very heart of a most savage wilderness, where never foot of man trod before,--unless you call these wild red creatures men? _Mait_. You talk wildly; that path, followed a few rods further, would have brought you out within sight of her mother's door. _Andre_. Ha! you have been in this wilderness then, ere now?