'To think of his going away without taking leave of my father!' And when she reached the hall-door of the King's House for a moment she forgot what she had come for, and was relieved to find that good Mrs. Strafford was in town. There was then, I don't know whether there is not now, a little path leading by the river bank from Chapelizod to Island-bridge, just an angler's footpath, devious and broken, but withal very sweet and pretty. Leaving the King's House, she took this way home, and as she walked down to the river bank, the mortified girl looked down upon the grass close by her feet, and whispered to the daisies as she went along--'No, there's no more kindness nor friendliness left in the world; the people are all cold creatures now, and hypocrites; and I'm glad he's gone.' She paused at the stile which went over the hedge just beside an old fluted pier, with a grass-grown urn at top, and overgrown with a climbing rose-tree, just such a study as a young lady might put in her album; and then she recollected the long letter from old Miss Wardle that Aunt Becky had sent her to read, with a request, which from that quarter was a command, that she should return it by six o'clock, for Aunt Becky, even in matters indifferent, liked to name hours, and nail people sharp and hard to futile appointments and barren punctualities. She paused at the stile; she liked the old pier; its partner next the river was in fragments, and the ruin and the survivor had both been clothed by good Mrs. Strafford--who drew a little, and cultivated the picturesque--with the roses I have mentioned, besides woodbine and ivy. She had old Miss Wardle's letter in her hand, full, of course, of shocking anecdotes about lunatics, and the sufferings of Fleet prisoners, and all the statistics, and enquiries, and dry little commissions, with which that worthy lady's correspondence abounded. It was open in her hand, and rustled sharp and stiffly in the air, but it was not inviting just then. From that point it was always a pretty look down or up the river; and her eyes followed with the flow of its waters towards Inchicore. She loved the river; and in her thoughts she wondered why she loved it--so cold, so unimpressible--that went shining and rejoicing away into the sea. And just at that moment she heard a sweet tenor, with a gaiety somehow pathetic, sing not far away the words she remembered-- 'And she smiled upon the stream, Like one that smiles at folly, A dreamer on a dream.' Devereux was coming--it was his playful salutation. Her large eyes dropped to the ground with the matchless blush of youth. She was strangely glad, but vexed at having changed colour; but when he came up with her, in the deep shadow thrown by the old pier, with its thick festooneries, he could not tell, he only knew she looked beautiful. 'My dreams take wing, but my follies will not leave me. And you have been ill, Miss Lilias?' 'Oh, nothing; only a little cold.'