"I wandered lonely as a cloud, That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A crowd of golden daffodils Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."
They seem so full of lazy joy, or unutterable rapture, that they belie her belief in the falseness of all things. There must surely be some good in a world that grows such charming things—things almost sentient. And the trees swaying about her head, and dropping their branches into the stream, is there no delight to be got out of them? The tenderness of this soft, sweet mood, in which perpetual twilight reigns, enters into her, and soothes the sad demon that is torturing her breast. Tears rise to her eyes; she leans still further over the parapet, and drawing the pink and white hawthorn blossoms from her bosom, drops them one by one into the hasty little river, and lets it bear them away upon its bosom to tiny bays unknown. Tears follow them, falling from her drooping lids. Can neither daffodils, nor birds, nor trees, give her some little of their joy to chase the sorrow from her heart?
Her soul seems to fling itself outward in an appeal to nature; and nature, that kind mother of us all, responds to the unspoken cry.
A step upon the bridge behind her! She starts into a more upright position and looks round her without much interest.
A dark figure is advancing toward her. Through the growing twilight it seems abnormally large and black, and Joyce stares at it anxiously. Not Freddy—not one of the laborers—they would be all clad in flannel jackets of a light color.
"Oh, is it you?" says Dysart, coming closer to her. He had, however, known it was she from the first moment his eyes rested upon her. No mist, no twilight could have deceived him, for—
Lovers' eyes are sharp to see And lovers' ears in hearing."
"Yes," says she, advancing a little toward him and giving him her hand. A cold little hand, and reluctant.
"I was coming down to Mrs. Monkton with a message—a letter—from Lady Baltimore."
"This is a very long way round from the Court, isn't it?" says she.