should cherish it in small formal minims. Perhaps in this whole
matter there was some lovely symbolism that he did not
understand.

The soft brightness was already lifting into upper air, a mingled
tissue of shadows lay along the valley. In the magical clarity of
the evening light he suddenly felt (as one often does, by
unaccountable planetary instinct) that there was a new moon.
Turning, he saw it, a silver snipping daintily afloat; and not
far away, an early star. He had found no creed in the prayer-book
that accounted for the stars. Here at the bottom of an ocean of
sky, we look aloft and see them thick-speckled--mere barnacles,
perhaps, on the keel of some greater ship of space. He remembered
how at home there had been a certain burning twinkle that peeped
through the screen of the dogwood tree. As he moved on his porch,
it seemed to flit to and fro, appearing and vanishing. He was
often uncertain whether it was a firefly a few yards away, or a
star the other side of Time. Possibly Truth was like that.

There was a light swift rustle behind him, and Miss Airedale
appeared.

"Hullo!" she said. "I wondered where you were. Is this how you
spend your afternoons, all alone?"

Stars, creeds, cosmologies, promptly receded into remote
perspective and had to shift for themselves. It was true that
Gissing had somewhat avoided her lately, for he feared her
fascination. He wished nothing else to interfere with his search
for what he had not yet found. Postpone the female problem to the