When his mother left him Tom sat down and looked round for a few moments, blankly. He was tired; but he could not rest until he had thought out this strange thing that had come to him, and here it was impossible to think. The atmosphere of the room oppressed him. He had a curious, irritating impression that, though his mother's bodily presence had gone, her spirit was haunting the place, preventing him from thinking freely. At last he opened the French window softly, let himself out into the garden, and, allowing his feet to carry him along mechanically, found himself presently on the lower lawn, close by the boat-house and willows. There he stopped and let his eyes wander at their will. Ah! what a world it was--this soft, mysterious midnight world of June! Think! How could he think? But, happily, there was no need yet. The hours of the sweet summer night were before him. With a deep inspiration, in which he seemed to be throwing off a heavy burden, he flung himself down on the grass, his face towards the sky, his feet towards the river, while he gave himself up to the rapturous sense-impressions of the moment. He saw the upper sky, veiled here and there with thin, vaporous cloud-wreaths; and it was so near it seemed to be stooping to embrace him. There was a streak of silver between the cloud-wreaths. It shone out, disappeared, shone out again, and the fleece about it was tinged with pale gold. It was a horn of the young moon--the moon on which Endymion's heavenly love descended, when on that starry night long ago she kissed his eyes open to behold her. Through 'the solemn midnight's tingling silentness' he could hear the swish of the water as it swept over the long grasses and reeds at his feet. Lovely water! and the fish that swam in it, were they awake too? Did they go on swimming all the night through? Lovely water! And lovely, lovely little earth! Ah! how sweet it was to live--only to live and breathe in her arms on such a night as this! It might have been a moment, it might have been an hour, that the boy lay upon the river bank. He could never tell. Of the prick--the tiny throb of self-consciousness, that called him out suddenly from his Eden he would often speak later with a smile. He sat up, frowned, drew his relaxed muscles together. _This_ was not what he had meant when he came out into the solitude, he said to himself severely. He was a man, not a thing; it was a weakness, a folly, to allow himself to drift into mere sensuousness. Ha! what was that? He turned round suddenly. It was a sound like a silver bell ringing close beside him. If he had been a child he might have thought that a fairy in a lily cup was laughing at him; the sound was so definite, so curiously round and clear.