dismissing the subject in that way, the subconscious mind was still no
doubt working at it, for two days later it all at once flashed into my
mind that my mysterious young lady was no other than the little Lillian
I had known so well eight years before! She was ten years old when I
first knew her, and I was quite intimately acquainted with her for a
little over a year, and greatly admired her for her beauty and charm,
especially when she smiled and that dimple flew about the corner of her
mouth like a twilight moth vaguely fluttering at the rim of a red
flower. But alas! her charm was waning: she was surrounded by relations
who adored her, and was intensely self-conscious, so that when after a
year her people moved to a new district, I was not sorry to break the
connection, and to forget all about her.

Now that I had seen and remembered her again, it was a consolation to
think that she was already in her decline when I first knew and was
attracted by her and on that account had never wholly lost my heart to
her. How different my feelings would have been if after pronouncing
that irrevocable judgment, I had recognised one of my vanished
darlings--one, say, like that child on Cromer Beach, or of dozens of
other fairylike little ones I have known and loved, and whose images
are enduring and sacred!




XXI

WILD FLOWERS AND LITTLE GIRLS