Chapter 1

David and I Set Forth Upon a Journey

Sometimes the little boy who calls me father brings me an
invitation from his mother: "I shall be so pleased if you will
come and see me," and I always reply in some such words as these:
"Dear madam, I decline." And if David asks why I decline, I
explain that it is because I have no desire to meet the woman.

"Come this time, father," he urged lately, "for it is her
birthday, and she is twenty-six," which is so great an age to
David, that I think he fears she cannot last much longer.

"Twenty-six, is she, David?" I replied. "Tell her I said she
looks more."

I had my delicious dream that night. I dreamt that I too was
twenty-six, which was a long time ago, and that I took train to a
place called my home, whose whereabouts I see not in my waking
hours, and when I alighted at the station a dear lost love was
waiting for me, and we went away together. She met me in no
ecstasy of emotion, nor was I surprised to find her there; it was
as if we had been married for years and parted for a day. I like
to think that I gave her some of the things to carry.

Were I to tell my delightful dream to David's mother, to whom I
have never in my life addressed one word, she would droop her
head and raise it bravely, to imply that I make her very sad but
very proud, and she would be wishful to lend me her absurd little
pocket handkerchief. And then, had I the heart, I might make a
disclosure that would startle her, for it is not the face of
David's mother that I see in my dreams.

Has it ever been your lot, reader, to be persecuted by a pretty
woman who thinks, without a tittle of reason, that you are bowed
down under a hopeless partiality for her? It is thus that I have
been pursued for several years now by the unwelcome sympathy of
the tender-hearted and virtuous Mary A----. When we pass in the
street the poor deluded soul subdues her buoyancy, as if it were
shame to walk happy before one she has lamed, and at such times
the rustle of her gown is whispered words of comfort to me, and
her arms are kindly wings that wish I was a little boy like
David. I also detect in her a fearful elation, which I am unaware
of until she has passed, when it comes back to me like a faint
note of challenge. Eyes that say you never must, nose that says
why don't you? and a mouth that says I rather wish you could:
such is the portrait of Mary A---- as she and I pass by.

Once she dared to address me, so that she could boast to David
that I had spoken to her. I was in the Kensington Gardens, and
she asked would I tell her the time please, just as children ask,
and forget as they run back with it to their