And Menie, leaning out, feels the soft summer air cool down the flush upon her cheeks, and lets her thoughts stray away over the great city yonder, where the sunshine weaves itself among the smoke, and makes a strange yellow tissue, fine and light to veil the Titan withal. The heat is leaving her soft cheek, her hair plays on it lightly, the wind fingering its loosened curls like a child, and Menie’s eyes have wandered far away with her thoughts and with her heart. Conscious of the sunshine here, lying steadily on the quiet lawn, the meagre yew-tree, the distant garden-path--conscious of the soft bank of turf, where these calm cattle repose luxuriously--of the broad yellow sandy road which skirts it--of the little gleam of water yonder in a distant hollow--but, buoyed upon joyous wings, hovering like a bird over an indistinct vision of yonder pier, and deck, and crowded street--a little circle enclosing one lofty figure, out of which rises this head, with its natural state and grace, out of which shine those glowing ardent eyes--and Menie, charmed and silent, looks on and watches, seeing him come and go through all the ignoble crowd--the crowd which has ceased to be ignoble when it encloses him. And voices of children ringing through the sunshine, and a sweet, soft, universal tinkle, as of some fairy music in the air, flow into Menie Laurie’s meditation, but never fret its golden thread; for every joy of sight and sound finds some kindred in this musing; and the voices grow into a sweet all-hail, and the hum of distant life lingers on her ear like the silver tone of fame--Fame that is coming--coming nearer every day, throwing the glow of its purple royal, the sheen of its diamond crown upon his head and on his path,--and the girl’s heart, overflooded with a light more glorious than the sunshine, forgets itself, its own identity and fate, in dreaming of the nobler fate to which its own is bound. “A young friend of yours?--you may depend upon my warmest welcome for him, my dear Mrs Laurie,” says a voice just emerging into the air below, which sends Menie back in great haste, and with violent unconscious blushes, from the window. “Mr Randall Home?--quite a remarkable name, I am sure. Something in an office? Indeed! But then, really, an office means so many very different things--may be of any class, in fact--and a literary man? I am delighted. He must be a very intimate friend to have seen you already.” Menie waits breathless for the answer, but in truth Mrs Laurie is very little more inclined to betray her secret than she is herself.