I had never in all my life heard a musical instrument. At the ball there would be a band. A band was several musical instruments playing all together. What could that be like? Would it resemble several people talking at once? That would be horribly confusing. But it could not be like several people talking together, for people spoke of a band as a source of fine pleasure. Would a band of several instruments playing at one time be like a parti-coloured card spun round? Hardly; for that only confused the colours, so long as they could be known to be separate colours, and only made a dull stain when they mingled in one tint. My first care was to keep my intention to myself. My second was to survey the ground of future enterprise. There was no difficulty about either of these precautions. I had merely to hold my tongue and to walk to Trafford Manor along a beautiful, undulating, winding, wooded road which passed by our modest gate, and before the stately portal of the great house. The beauty of Trafford Manor was renowned in all the south, and the owner was proud of his grounds and opened them to all who chose to see them. One morning, to the astonishment of my cousin Nellie, I announced my intention of going for a long walk. She was delighted, crammed my pockets full of the best good things in the larder, and declared that she should resent seeing me before dinner. That whole day I spent in the Trafford demesne. Surely nowhere was scene more fitted for a fairy _fête_. It was mid April, and clear and sunny weather. The air was full of fresh spices of the swelling buds and of the dainty, delicate, flat leaves already unsheathed and glittering moist and green in the flowing air. It was rapture to live and breathe, and heaven to know as much and no more of the world of things than books taught, no more than enough to set the spirit dreaming. All the senses brought fuel for poetry, if the sacred flame fluttered inside. As yet the trees were only misty with verdure. The depths in depth of vestal green in the woods took the eye into such enchanted bowers of the imagination, it was like praying, to stand and listen to the soft, ample murmurs of the multitudinous leaves as the broad air came by them out of the opening south. [Illustration: "CRAMMED MY POCKETS FULL."]