Even as the soul is constrained by the body, so must the ideal thought lose of its fragrance when limited to the spoken word. But the very condition of life’s tenure urges us to hasten ever onwards towards the success of attainment. We may not sit and taste the full sweetness of the present because our foreseeing nature and old Time are spurring us on, on! This present of ours is fleeting enough, God knows. Yet the miserable restlessness within us robs us of the minute even while it is ours. Thus the most perfect things in our lives will ever be a memory. But when the golden hours have all tolled for us, when the flowers are all withered, at least we can look back and say: “That was my sunrise hour. ... That was my perfect rose!” They spoke little to each other, but Ellinor saw the lines of melancholy fade out of his face and become replaced by soft restfulness. Tired he looked, the watcher of the night, in the broad radiance of the day, but happy. It was as if the fatigue itself brought a sense of peace, lulling him to dreaminess and depriving him of the energy to fight against the sweetness of the moment. Suddenly, with the light tread of a cat, the squat figure of Mrs. Nutmeg, in her decent widow’s black and her snowy mutch, came upon them from the house. She paused with a start of such extreme surprise that it was in itself an impertinence, and the more galling because it could not be resented. Ignoring the scarlet-cheeked Ellinor, the housekeeper dropped her curtsey and offered ostentatious excuses to Sir David. “I humbly ask your pardon, sir. Indeed, sir, I had no idea, or I would not have made so bold as to intrude. I hope, sir, you’ll forgive me for disturbing you at such a moment!” Her eye roved as she spoke over the disordered table, aside to Ellinor’s cloak and the basket of withering herbs; then back to Ellinor herself, where it deliberately measured every detail—the dusty shoe, the green stains on the gown, the flushed brow, the disordered hair. Her unconscious master waved his hand a little impatiently with his formal “Good morrow,” that was more a dismissal than a greeting. Mrs. Nutmeg returned Sir David’s brief salutation with another unctuous curtsey. Withdrawing her glance from Ellinor, she fixed it upon his face, with a vain attempt to throw an expression of tender solicitude into the opaque white and the meaningless black of her eye. “Excuse the liberty, sir,” she began again, “but do you feel quite yourself this morning? It do go to my heart to see how drawn and ill you be looking! I fear these last months, sir, you haven’t been as usual. Not at all. More has remarked it than myself.” Ellinor rose. “It’s getting late, Margery,” she said, “and the cream is not skimmed yet. Ring the bell for the girls.” “Yes, ma’am,” Margery curtseyed, her eyes still clinging unwaveringly to her master’s face. This was now turned upon her with a sudden frown. “Do you not hear?” said Sir David.