The gazer lost himself in memories of epic and idyll, warming through worship to desire.

Then his look strayed to the next engraving; a peasant girl, consummate in grace and strength, supreme in chaste pride, cheek and neck soft-glowing from the sunny field, eyes revealing the heart at one with nature.

Others there were, women of many worlds, only less beautiful; but by these three the young man was held bound.

He could not satisfy himself with looking and musing; he could not pluck himself away.

An old experience; he always lingered by the print shops of the Haymarket, and always went on with troubled blood, with mind rapt above familiar circumstance, dreaming passionately, making wild forecast of his fate.
At this hour of the morning not many passers had leisure to stand and gaze; one, however, came to a pause beside Piers Otway, and viewed the engravings.