After that, service in the Gothic church was a much more important event
to The Dreamer than before--an event looked forward to with trembling
from Sunday to Sunday. After that too, upon his periodical week-day
walks with the school, he would look up at the quaint old homesteads
they passed, with their hedged gardens, ivied walls and sweet-scented
shrubberies, and try to guess which was the house-wonderful in which she
dwelt. Then suddenly, one sweet May afternoon, he discovered it.

It was, as was fitting, the most antique, the most distinguished mansion
of them all. He saw her through the bars of the stately entrance gate as
she sat beside her mother, on a garden-seat, tying into nosegays the
flowers that filled her lap. Stupified by the shock of the discovery, he
stood rooted to the ground, letting his school-mates go on ahead of him.
She was much nearer him than she had been in the dusky church, and upon
closer view, she seemed even more lovely, more flower-like, more angelic
than ever before. He stared upon her face with a gaze so compelling
that she looked up and smiled at him; then, with sudden impulse,
gathered her flowers in her apron, and running forward, handed him
through the gate, a fragrant, creamy bud that she happened at the moment
to have in her hand.

As in a dream, he stretched his fingers for it. He tried to frame an
expression of thanks, but his lips were dry and though they moved, no
sound came. She had returned at once to her seat beside her mother, and
the voice of the usher (who had just missed him) sharply calling to him
to "Come on!" was in his ears. He hurried forward, trembling in all his
limbs. Twice he stumbled and nearly fell. The bud, he had quickly hidden
within his jacket--it was too holy a thing for the profane eyes of his
school-fellows to look upon.