The Quest of the Golden Girl: A Romance

ach Yellowsands. Rosalind would, of course, arrive there long before me; but

arelessly tossing it from one to the other, unmindful of the hungry fathoms on every side. A sudden slip, and they had lost it for ever, and might only watch its shimmering fall to the bottom of the world. Theories! Theories are for the unknown and the unhappy. Who will trouble to theorise about Heaven when he has found Heaven itself? Theories are for the poor-devil outcast,-for him who stands outside the confectioner's shop of life without a penny in his pocket, while the radiant purchasers pass in and out

no nearer than when I set out. I had seen a good many Bath-buns on my pilgrimage, it is true. Some I have not had space

ance,-that is, be the right girl! Oh, Sylvia Joy! where art thou?

thy lover

e sighs that re

velists say, "a str

rizon gave no hint. Its cheerless hillocks were all but naked of vegetation, for a never very flourishing growth of heather had recently been burnt right down to the unkindly-looking earth, leavin

nsciously I had been overtaking a tall young woman walking in the same direction as

ll-shod feet upon the road. There was an air of expectancy about her walk, as t

by a London train which I had listlessly observed come in to the town an hour before. This surmise was confirmed, as presently,-over the brow of a distant undulation in the road, I descried a farmer's gi

was no whit less noble than the queenly carriage of her limbs, and her glorious chestnut hair, full of warm tints of gold, was massed in a sumptuous simplicity above a neck that would have made an average woman's fortune. This glowing description, however,

, for somehow features always mean little to me. They were certainly beautifully moulded, and her skin was of a lovely pale olive, but the life of her face was in her great violet eyes and her wonderful mouth. Thus suddenly to look into her face was like unexpectedly to come upon moon and stars reflected in some lonely pool. I suppose the look lasted only a second or two; but it left me dazzled as that king in the Eastern tale, who seemed to have lived whole dream-lives between dipping his head into a bowl of water and

ly! Meanwhile the gig approached, and the

dently her sister, and who was considerably more rustic in style a

I noticed a slight darkening of her face. Tom

e of reason within me, "and

r voice in my soul, kicking the feeble cre

onviction, that the woman who was already being rolled away from me down the road in that Dis's car of a farmer's gig, was now and for ever and before all w

gazed after her, aimlessly standing in the middle of the road. Why did I not

ed, ready any moment to flee for his life, "that she is written yours in all the stars, and particularly do I see it written on the face of the moon; but you mustn't forget that many are thus meant for

as it fancy?-I seemed to have caught the flash of a momentarily fluttering handkerchief. "Won't I? you fool!" I e

n the road after her. To lose her like this, at the very moment

ntary memory of Nicolete sang to me as I read the quaint names of the villages to one of which the Vision was certainly wending. Yes! I was boun

he direction of its fall. Like most ancient guide-posts, it led me quite wrong, down into a pig's-trough of a hamlet whither I felt sure she couldn't have been bound. Then I ran back in a frenzy, and tried the other road,-as if it could be an

I imagined her to be? But this was sheer reason again, and has no place in a fantastic romance. So I hasten to add that the mood was one of brief duration, and that no cold-water arguments were able to quench the fire which

glance at each other had been, I had fancied in her eyes a momentary kindling as they met mine,

correspondence of sex, no mere spell of a beautiful face (for such passion and such glamour I had made use of opportunities to st

that are fancies on earth, but facts in heaven. Perhaps you