So great was the loveliness that I paused: in my most lively dreams I had never imagined aught like so perfect. As I stood I heard the cry of _cuckoo_, then from the distance the laughing mockery of a voice. Years rolled away like a mist, I was a boy again, she a girl; vice and dishonesty and sadness had all disappeared, and life was fresh and sweet as in those days of old. I ran clapping my hands to a coppice of firs, which, as firs are used, had caught about its trunks a golden mist, and there I found Millicent, knee-deep in bracken. There is a certain tremulous joy whose remembrance pains me almost too much to describe. When I said before that we were boy and girl again I spoke rashly, though children we were in a sense. But we were weaker because of our age: children love for very joy of heart and innocence, men and women love for love’s sake. There was no reticence in either, we gave ourselves to each other with freedom and without shame. Neither had lived so long as to be unconscious that true love--true passion--is the completion of existence. She loitered at my side through the open park, where stands a ruined abbey, and along glades to the terrace of the house. Byland Grange is one of the strangest mansions in our country, standing against an abruptly rising cliff which mountain ashes and silver birches cover with greenery. The building is of red brick, with two wings and a court garden, and so covered with ivy that from the distance it seems like a cluster of rare trees with ruddy trunks and branches. The sun had taken the windows, and the whole front was chequered with glittering lights. The great door stood open: we went into a hall where stood wooden knights in complete panoply. At the end were two flights of stairs, which joined to a corridor that pierced the house: in niches fountains fell with pleasing music from satyrs’ heads and dolphins’ mouths. In a chamber of faded colours we sat together on the same settee, silently, heedless of the hours. Through the window we saw the moon disentangle herself from the tree-tops, the stars twinkle out one by one. Not until candles were brought did I take my leave, and then I entreated my mistress to meet me early on the morrow.