She tapt her tiny silken-sandaled foot:

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"That's your light way; but I would make it death

For any male thing but to peep at us."

Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laughed;

A rosebud set with little wilful thorns,

And sweet as English air could make her, she:
But Walter hailed a score of names upon her,
And "petty Ogress," and "ungrateful Puss,"
And swore he longed at college, only longed,
All else was well, for she-society.

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They boated and they cricketed; they talked

145

At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics;

They lost their weeks; they vext the souls of deans;
They rode; they betted; made a hundred friends,

And caught the blossom of the flying terms,
But missed the mignonette of Vivian-place,
The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke,
Part banter, part affection.

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"True," she said,

"We doubt not that. O yes, you missed us much. I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did."

She held it out; and as a parrot turns

155

Up through gilt wires a crafty loving eye,
And takes a lady's finger with all care,

And bites it for true heart, and not for harm,

So he with Lilia's.

And wrung it.

Daintily she shrieked

"Doubt my word again!" he said.

"Come, listen! here is proof that you were missed: We seven stayed at Christmas up to read;

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And there we took one tutor as to read:

The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square
Were out of season: never man, I think,

165

So mouldered in a sinecure as he :

For while our cloisters echoed frosty feet,

And our long walks were stript as bare as brooms,
We did but talk you over, pledge you all

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Sick for the hollies and the yews of home-
As many little trifling Lilias — played

Charades and riddles as at Christmas here,

And what's my thought and when and where and how, 175

And often told a tale from mouth to mouth

As here at Christmas."

She remembered that:

A pleasant game, she thought: she liked it more

Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest.

But these

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what kind of tales did men tell men,

She wondered, by themselves?

4

A half-disdain

Perched on the pouted blossom of her lips:
And Walter nodded at me; "He began,

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The rest would follow, each in turn; and so
We forged a seven-fold story. Kind? what kind?
Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms,
Seven-headed monsters only made to kill

The tyrant! kill him in the summer too,"

Said Lilia; "Why not now," the maiden Aunt. "Why not a summer's as a winter's tale?

A tale for summer, as befits the time;

And something it should be to suit the place,
Heroic, for a hero lies beneath,

Grave, solemn!"

Walter warped his mouth at this

To something so mock-solemn, that I laughed,
And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth
An echo, like an April woodpecker,

Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt

795

200

Or be yourself your hero if you will."

(A little sense of wrong had touched her face With color) turned to me with "As you will Heroic if you will, or what you will,

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"Take Lilia, then, for heroine," clamored he,

"And make her some great Princess, six feet high Grand, epic, homicidal; and be you

The Prince to win her!"

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"Then follow me, the Prince,"

I answered; "each be hero in his turn!

Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. —

Heroic seems our Princess as required.

But something made to suit with time and place,

A Gothic ruin, and a Grecian house,

A talk of college and of ladies' rights,

A feudal knight in silken masquerade,

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And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments,

2.20

For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them ail,—

This were a medley! we should have him back

Who told the 'Winter's tale,' to do it for us.
No matter: we will say whatever comes.
And let the ladies sing us, if they will,
From time to time, some ballad, or a song,
To give us breathing-space."

So I began,

And the rest followed; and the women sang
Between the rougher voices of the men,
Like linnets in the pauses of the wind:
And here I give the story and the songs.

1.

A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,
Of temper amorous, as the first of May,
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,
For on my cradle shone the northern star.

There lived an ancient legend in our house.
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold,
Dying, that none of all our blood should know
The shadow from the substance, and that one
Should come to fight with shadows, and to fall.
For so, my mother said, the story ran.

And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less,
An old and strange affection of the house.

Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows what
On a sudden, in the midst of men and day,
And while I walked and talked as heretofore,
I seemed to move among a world of ghosts,
And feel myself the shadow of a dream.

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