"Why not? You can try. Even if you fail, you can try. Of course
we think you tremendously clever; and I met one of your dons at
tea, and he said that your degree was not in the least a proof of
your abilities: he said that you knocked up and got flurried in
examinations. Oh!"--her cheek flushed,--"I wish I was a man. The
whole world lies before them. They can do anything. They aren't
cooped up with servants and tea parties and twaddle. But where's
this dell where the Dryad disappeared?"

"We've passed it." He had meant to pass it. It was too beautiful.
All he had read, all he had hoped for, all he had loved, seemed
to quiver in its enchanted air. It was perilous. He dared not
enter it with such a woman.

"How long ago?" She turned back. "I don't want to miss the dell.
Here it must be," she added after a few moments, and sprang up
the green bank that hid the entrance from the road. "Oh, what a
jolly place!"

"Go right in if you want to see it," said Rickie, and did not
offer to go with her. She stood for a moment looking at the view,
for a few steps will increase a view in Cambridgeshire. The wind
blew her dress against her. Then, like a cataract again, she
vanished pure and cool into the dell.

The young man thought of her feelings no longer. His heart
throbbed louder and louder, and seemed to shake him to pieces.
"Rickie!"