Let Professor Brachipod explain that, if he can; and there is nothing that he will not explain most ably, whether he is able, or whether he is not. Some great change had "permeated my organisation"--as they call it, as if I were full of pipes--which made me cleave rather to the earth (in periods of exuberant happiness) than soar to the sky, to complete it there. Perhaps when I grow old, I shall become less earthy, and again seek my happiness by going upward; but nothing now sets me on the springs of my system, except the most expansive and elevating indignation. And to put aside that, and all questions whatever of the motives for this, or the reasons against that, would manners (any more than common sense, and sound judgment) have allowed me to fly away from lovely Laura? So long as I had her at my side, what else in the earth, or the air, or the sky, could I desire? No one has noticed--to the best of my knowledge--what a comfort there is, in the pattering of feet, when they keep time, and answer well to one another. Not as a single pair, I mean, each coming after the other with a gap; but as a pair of a pair-going feet, toe and heel exactly to one another, with no more space crosswise between them, than the other foot requires to come up, and fill the gap. And when this is done upon a firm gray sand, with just enough spring to make it beautiful to walk, and just enough yield to take a light impression, how can the most scientific human body, with a fair human body at the side of it, continue to lament that it is not quadruped? When we came to the rocks, it was even better. For here, there was such a fine slippery spread of the carpet of the sea, and so many green fringes, covering traps where a little foot might sink, and perhaps get sprained, or at any rate get soaked, that at every few yards there was need of a hand, or sometimes of two, for discretion of step. And at every such aid, there was a smile to pay; not to mention the downcast of eyes sometimes, and sometimes their uplifting with a soft, sweet light, and the fluttering of lashes in the fresh wind from the sea, and the murmuring of lips, more pink and melodious than any clear Pacific shell. And when the brisk freedom of the salt air shed the dark clusters of her hair, upon her face and neck, veiling the gentle blush and the shy damask, my very best manners, and most deep responsibility, struggled in vain to prevent me from saying--"You are the very image of a beautiful moss-rose." She was not at all offended, but looked calmly at me; and answered, to my horror--"What a beautiful idea! I shall tell Mamma, that you said that." "Oh, please don't do anything of the sort," I exclaimed; "she would be sure,--or at least she might--I cannot exactly make you understand. But she might not be altogether pleased, you know."