courage failed him to follow and address her, though he would have given
all he possessed to have one more glance at the sweet face which so
suddenly changed his poetical visions into a still more poetical reality.
However, the shades of evening were sinking fast; John Clare could not
see far even from the top of his tree, to which he clung with a lover's
despair, so that the beautiful apparition was soon lost to him. Sleep did
not come to his eyes in the following night; and the slow hours of
lime-burning the next day only passed on in making projects how he would
go to the field near the 'Flower Pot,' and try to meet his sweet love
again. He went to the field, but she came not; not the following day, nor
the second, nor the whole week. John Clare began to think the fair face
which he had seen, and with which he had fallen in love at first sight,
was after all, but the vision of a dream.

More than two weeks passed, and John Clare, with his fiddle under his
arm, one evening made his way to Stamford, to play at a merry meeting of
lime-burners the tunes which the gypsies had taught him. While walking
along the road, the vision burst upon him a second time in not to be
mistaken reality. There again was the fair damsel he had seen walking, or
floating, across the greensward on the Sunday eve; as fair and trim as
ever, though this time not in her Sunday dress. John Clare, with much
good sense, thought it useless to climb again upon a tree; but summing up
courage, followed his vision, and, after a while, addressed her in timid,
soft words. What gave him some courage for the moment was, that being on
a festive excursion, he had donned his very best garments, including a
flowery waistcoat and a hat as yet free from the desk service of poetry.
The fair damsel, when thus addressed in the road, smiled upon her
interlocutor; there could be no doubt, his words, and, perhaps, his
waistcoat and new hat, found favour in her eyes. And not only did she
allow him to address her, but permitted him even to accompany her to her