IN WHICH I EAT AND DREAM The girl we go to meet is the girl we have met before.

I evolved this sage reflection, as, lost deep down in the green alleys of the dingle, having fortified the romantic side of my nature with sandwiches and sherry, I lazily put the question to myself as to what manner of girl I expected the Golden Girl to be.

A man who goes seeking should have some notion of what he goes out to seek.

Had I any ideal by which to test and measure the damsels of the world who were to pass before my critical choosing eye?
Had I ever met any girl in the past who would serve approximately as a model,--any girl, in fact, I would very much like to meet again?
I was very sleepy, and while trying to make up my mind I fell asleep; and lo! the sandwiches and sherry brought me a dream that I could not but consider of good omen.

And this was the dream.
I thought my quest had brought me into a strange old haunted forest, and that I had thrown myself down to rest at the gnarled mossy root of a great oak-tree, while all about me was nought but fantastic shapes and capricious groups of gold-green bole and bough, wondrous alleys ending in mysterious coverts, and green lanes of exquisite turf that seemed to have been laid down in expectation of some milk-white queen or goddess passing that way.
And so still the forest was you could have heard an acorn drop or a bird call from one end of it to the other.