"IN THE HAMMOCK REPOSED A MAIDEN."
The balloon, after profound meditation, decided in favour of land, and in no long time she began to settle quietly down, with the gentleness of a snow-flake, and finally sank gracefully into the arms of a huge pear tree, white with blossom; whereupon the aeronaut grappled her to the tree, filled and lit a comfortable-looking pipe, and leaned carelessly over the edge of the car, to spy out the nakedness of this foster land. It was against his principles to seem otherwise than dispassioned on these occasions.
"HE TOOK A CONTENTED SURVEY OF HIS FRUIT TREES."
Below him he saw a big garden, full of yews, box, fruit trees, and spring flowers, all hobnobbing with one another in the cheeriest manner imaginable. At the far end of the garden stood a house, of ruddy complexion, prosperous bulk, and Queen Anne architecture. Immediately beneath him—the branches diverged considerately, so as to allow his vision free play—a hammock was swinging gently from side to side, and in the hammock reposed a maiden. Now the prospect of a speedy demise did not excite Reginald Hampton, but a suggestion of feminine beauty had never been known to fail in this. He nearly fell out of the car in his eagerness to distinguish the details of the girl's appearance. A girl in a hammock, he reflected, ought always to be pretty, and artistic propriety demanded that she should be a veritable Peri when he had taken the trouble to save his neck by falling into the very tree to which her hammock was attached.
So eager was he, indeed, that his teeth lost their hold of the big briar, which cannoned from branch to branch, and dropped, somewhat forcibly, into the girl's hand. The prospective Peri was naturally a little startled, and more than a little angry, because the pipe had hurt her considerably. She slipped out of the hammock and stood looking about her with an air of enraged bewilderment. And from the clouds there came, as it were, a voice independent of any human tabernacle, a vox et preterea nihil.
"I'm awfully sorry—upon my word, most careless of me—may I come down and make my apologies in proper form?"
"Please, where are you?" demanded the girl. The tree was so constructed that Hampton could more easily see her than she him; and moreover it is one of the most difficult things in the world to locate an unexpected sound.
"I'm tree'd," laughed the voice, "straight above your head."
"That sounds odd," returned the other, beginning to enter into the spirit of the situation; "how on earth did you get there, and who are you?"