tied a yellow ribbon in the darkness of her hair.

Rosinante awaited me at the little green gate, eyeing forlornly the
steep valley at her feet. And I rode on. The gate was shut on me; and
Mr. Rochester again, perhaps, at his black ease.

I had jogged on, with that peculiar gravity age brings to equine
hoofs, about a mile, when the buttress of a thick wall came into view
abutting on the lane, and perched thereon what at first I deemed a
coloured figment of the mist that festooned the branches and clung
along the turf. But when I drew near I saw it was indeed a child, pink
and gold and palest blue. And she raised changeling hands at me, and
laughed and danced and chattered like the drops upon a waterfall; and
clear as if a tiny bell had jingled I heard her cry.

And my heart smote me heavily since I had of my own courtesy not
remembered Adèle.




IV

_Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, tu-witta-woo._

--THOMAS NASH.


It was yet early, and refreshing in the chequered shade. We plodded
earnestly after our gaunt shadow in the dust, and ever downward, till