was only two, say three years older than I, and
this assumption of the authority of age hardly
warranted the impert—the imp——The
thought fluttered, died within me, as I looked
fairly at the radiant vision that had settled on
our humble wall, and was striving with its little
white hands (one of which grasped a battledore),
and with better fortune than attended Humpty-
Dumpty, to maintain its position there.

"Sank you, ze leetle," said the celestial shape.
But it did not disappear. On the contrary, it
clung more tightly to the happy top of the
wall, gazing at me with a mixture of contempt
and interest, such as an immortal might feel for
one of earthly mould, who was not without
agreeable traits. "Are you very bad?"

"Bad!" If quivering with admiration from
the topmost hair on my head to the extremity
of my preposterous timber legs meant bad, I was
in a very precarious condition indeed. I could
only gasp and stare, and the goddess continued:

"Ze poor leetle! Qu'est ce que tu as fait?
Zat is" (her look changing to unmistakable
compassion), "why do you this? Is he cruel,
your master? Do zey give you mosh wheep?"

"Mademoiselle est Francaise?" I stammered,
parrying the question while I endeavoured to
regain my mental and bodily equilibrium.
Romeo himself would have been embarrassed
on stilts.

"I am not Angleesh," said the radiant
presence, frankly, "but I speak him beautiful,
quite in the native. Let us see. I am Desirée
Lamond, and you, you are leetle Harri—leetle
John—how?"

I responded that my name, to the best of my
belief, was not John How, but Charley
Milborne. Then, confused at having contradicted,
however justifiably, the first assertion of a
goddess, I felt that, if stilts could kneel, I should
have assumed that posture, implored forgiveness,
and vowed that I was henceforward John
Brown, Peter Pips, or anybody she deigned to
pronounce me.

"Ah! Miel—Mil—how zat is difficult! I
shall call you 'ze Leetl,'" replied the celestial
Thing, with sudden decision, and a smile that
doubled me up, stilts and all, flung me half way
to the clouds, and, catching me as I descended,
laid me in a bewildered heap on the ground.
There, at least, I found myself, when my senses
returned. The perch my goddess had occupied
was vacant of her glorious form, and one of my
stilts was broken. So was my peace.

The romance struck root, and flourished
mightily. The fact that we never met, threw
me, more than might otherwise have been
the case, upon imagination. She became
associated with everything I read—everything
I thought of, everything I saw. In study she
was my Nymph, my Dryad, my blue-eyed Pallas-
Minerva—watchful, though unseen, of her mortal
worshipper. In sport, she was the arbitress,
dispenser of prizes, and of fame. In gardening
I called my rose "Desirée," nursing bud after
bud into perfection, in a bewildered hope
that one or other of them might reach,
by some arrangement not clearly laid down,
what, in confidence to Murrell Sillito, I
described as the Paradise of her bosom. In short,
though I adopted the language of the broken-
hearted, I never was, nay, nor ever shall be,
so perfectly content and happy in my life.

See her, however, I did. Once a week—her
family attended the same chapel, to which, in
a long sinuous column, chattering from its
head to its tail—Doctor Normicutt's young
friends resorted on the Sabbath. There were
two other young ladies, and two ladies who
had been younger still, in the Lamondian pew,
and Desirée sat at the end nearest ours.

I am sorry to say that this last fact exercised
a material influence on my devotions. My eyes,
and therewith my thoughts, riveted themselves
upon my beautiful mistress, and defied all
efforts to dislodge them. For some time she
did not seem to recognise her "Leetle." When
she did, it was with no encouragement, so to
speak. Still, at certain rare intervals, she
would, as if in sheer pity of the boyish admiration
expressed in my incessant watching, turn
her bright face, flash me an impatient but not
angry look, as if she said, "There, be satisfied,"
and return, with double earnestness, to her
interrupted orisons. Absurd as it now appears,
my life, at this period, dated only by these
weekly visions. No sooner had the last flutter
of her white dress disappeared down the chapel
stairs than I began to count the hours, nay, the
very minutes, until another Sunday should
restore her to my eyes; and vain would be the
attempt to depict the gloom and misery that
overwhelmed my soul, when a wet Sunday
displayed the Lamond pew a dreary void. With
what deadly hatred did I glare at an unfortunate
stranger, who, on one of these occasions, was
inducted by the pew-opener into the empty seat!

There occurred, after many weeks, one other
interview. I was in my little garden, which
happened to be in a corner, round the angle
formed by a tool-shed, when a voice, that made
my heart leap, spoke softly from the top of the
wall.

"Pst!" said the celestial sounds. "Say zen,
ze Leet'l."

I looked up. It was she!

"Ecoute donc, le p'tit," said the goddess, in
a hurried whisper. "II ne faut pas me regarder
comme ?a." She threw into her face an
intense expression, such, I presume, as mine
had been accustomed to wear in gazing at her,
as I have described. "Mamma has written to
ze doctor. You will walk in stilt." (She evidently
held that this was a form of punishment.)
"Be also mosh wheep, mon pauvre, oh, mon
pauvre!"

The goddess seemed about to cry.

"Oh, stop. Please don't!" said I, as agitated
as herself. "Don't mind me—that is, yes—I
won't—if I may—ah, mademoiselle, do not
forbid me that" From a subsequent examination
of the knees of my light blue trousers when
I recovered self-command, I imagine I must
have assumed the attitude of supplication.