A Phantom of Delight

through mingled shadow and moonshine. “ I wonder if she will possibly come this evening, or if I have frightened her away for ever. I’ll hide me behind this spruce copse and wait.”

Eric waited until dark, but no music sounded through the orchard and no one came to it. The keenness of his disap- pointment surprised him, nay more, it vexed him. What nonsense to be so worked up because a little girl he had seen for five minutes failed to appear! Where was his common sense, his “ gumption,” as old Robert Williamson would have said? Naturally a man liked to look at a pretty face. But was that any reason why he should feel as if life were flat, stale, and unprofitable simply because he could not look at it? He called himself a fool and went home in a petulant mood. Arriving there, he plunged fiercely into solving algebraical equations and work- ing out geometry exercises, determined to put out of his head forthwith all yain im-

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