"Yes, this spot is their favorite pasture, as you can see."
Dick looked at the invisible sheep dotting the clean sward. "So I perceive. But let me understand. Is this flock yours alone, or are my sheep also here?"
"Oh, you have left your flock on your own hillside, and have come up the stream to see me. Neglectful shepherd!"
"When a shepherd neglects his own sheep, and hies to the lodge of a neighboring shepherdess, you know what it is a sign of," said Dick.
"It is a sign that he likes to gossip."
"No; it is a sign that Cupid is at work."
Amaryllis blushed ever so slightly, but seemed pleased, and did not lose her composure. "Well, to be sure, that is what invariably occurs between shepherds and shepherdesses. I suppose there is no way of getting around it."
"Not when Amaryllis is the shepherdess, by Jupiter!" said Dick, with genuine enthusiasm.
So the game went on, and, whether or not it was all fun with Amaryllis, it soon became half in earnest with Silvius. By a miracle, the balmy weather, a premature promise of spring, lasted a week. Every day Silvius came to the tryst, and, when he did not find Amaryllis waiting, he had not long to wait for her. They strolled along the wooded banks of the Seine, fancying those banks to be now those of the Lignon, now those of the Tiber, now those of some Hellenic or Sicilian stream.
Sometimes a dainty luncheon, set out in the lodge or under the trees, varied the monotony of this shepherd life. Sometimes the conversation rose far out of the ken of ordinary shepherds, and invaded such subjects as philosophy and religion, sentiment and the passions, art and letters, music and the drama. Amaryllis described the acting of LeKain, and Silvius gave an account of the last appearance of Garrick, which Dick had witnessed from the first gallery of Drury Lane Theatre the previous June 10th, when the English actor played "Don Felix" in "The Wonder" and made a farewell speech that drew tears from himself and his brilliant audience. But Dick learned far more than he could impart. His week of make-believe pastoral was an education, and did more to fit him for the fine world than all his former years had done. Of course that week had results of the heart as well as of the intellect.