And one day, beguiling him in the depths of the forest, she led him to a fair-seeming castle, and, bidding him enter its portals, offered to show him a realization of his dream.

But, lo! even as he entered the stately corridor it seemed to crumble away before him, and disclosed a hideous abyss beyond, in which the whole of that goodly palace lay in heaped and tangled ruins--the fitting symbol of his wrecked and shattered hopes." She drew back a little way from him, but still holding on to the top of the broken wall with one slim gauntleted hand, and swung herself to one side, while she surveyed him with smiling, parted lips and conscious eyelids.

He promptly covered her hand with his own, but she did not seem to notice it.
"That is not the story," she said, in a faint voice that even her struggling sauciness could not make steadier.

"The true story is called 'The Legend of the Goose-Girl of Strudle Bad, and the enterprising Gosling.' There was once a goose-girl of the plain who tried honestly to drive her geese to market, but one eccentric and willful gosling-- Mr.Hathaway! Stop--please--I beg you let me go!" He had caught her in his arms--the one encircling her waist, the other hand still grasping hers.

She struggled, half laughing; yielded for a breathless moment as his lips brushed her cheek, and--threw him off.
"There!" she said, "that will do: the story was not illustrated." "But, Yerba," he said, with passionate eagerness, "hear me--it is all God's truth .-- I love you!" She drew back farther, shaking the dust of the wall from the folds of her habit.