The blue-bell was silent, but all the tiny green leaves laughed, blowing cheekily in the sun.
"Poor, silly poet," they seemed to say, "why not wake up, like the blue-bell, from your land of dreams, and drink the real nectar—live for a day or two in a real, wild, glorious Spring?"
But the poet dreamed on, stringing his conceits heavily together, and with a knitted brow; for, somehow, the feet of the muse lagged tardily this April afternoon.
Then he stumbled over a parasol which lay across the path.
He looked up.
"I beg your pardon," he said, looking into a pair of blue eyes—or were they grey, or hazel? He was not quite sure, but they seemed, at any rate, Hibernian.
"It was quite my fault; I am so sorry."
"Nay, I was dreaming," said the poet.
"And, sure, so was I, too."