or it may have been the sight of a harebell; and perhaps it
came from nothing but the "waste shining of the sky." At all
events, there they were, remembered again, looking at me from
the past, blue eyes that were beautiful and dear to me, whose
blue colour was associated with every sweetness and charm in
child and woman and with all that is best and highest in human
souls; and I could not and had no wish to resist their appeal.

Then came a new experience of the eye that is blue--a meeting
with one who almost seemed to be less flesh than spirit. A
middle-aged lady, frail, very frail; exceedingly pale from
long ill-health, prematurely white-haired, with beautiful grey
eyes, gentle but wonderfully bright. Altogether she was like
a being compounded as to her grosser part of foam and mist and
gossamer and thistledown, and was swayed by every breath of
air, and who, should she venture abroad in rough weather,
would be lifted and blown away by the gale and scattered like
mist over the earth. Yet she, so frail, so timid, was the one
member of the community who had set herself to do the work of
a giant--that of championing all ill-used and suffering
creatures, wild or tame, holding a protecting shield over them
against the innate brutality of the people. She had been
abused and mocked and jeered at by many, while others had
regarded her action with an amused smile or else with a cold
indifference. But eventually some, for very shame, had been
drawn to her side, and a change in the feeling of the people
had resulted; domestic animals were treated better, and it was
no longer universally believed that all wild animals,
especially those with wings, existed only that men might amuse