petticoats like that—" 

 "What was she like?" I asked through my agitation. 

 "Middle height, slim and fair, with red goldy hair and big blue eyes; about thirty, I should say." 

 "The very same," I groaned, "there is no mistake; and now," I continued, "I want you to sell me that petticoat and those stockings," and I took a couple of sovereigns from my purse. "I want to have them to confront her with, when I do find her. Perhaps it will touch her heart to think of the strange way in which I came by them; and you can buy just as pretty ones again with the money," I added, as I noticed the disappointment on her face at the prospect of thus losing her finery. 

 "Well, it's a funny business, to be sure," she said, as still half reluctantly she unpegged the coveted garments from the line; "but if what you say 's true, I suppose you must have them." 

 The wanton wind had been so busily kissing them all the morning that they were quite dry, so I was able to find room for them in my knapsack without danger to the other contents; and, with a hasty good-day to their recent possessor, I set off at full speed to find a secure nook where I could throw myself down on the grass, and let loose the absurd laughter that was dangerously bottled up within me; but even before I do that it behoves me if possible to vindicate my sanity to the reader. 

 

 

 CHAPTER XVI 

 CLEARS UP MY MYSTERIOUS BEHAVIOUR OF THE LAST CHAPTER 

 What a sane man should be doing carrying about with him a woman's petticoat and silk stockings, may well be a puzzle to the most intelligent reader. 

 Whim, sir, whim! and few human actions admit of more satisfactory solution. Like Shylock, I'll say "It is my humour."  But no! I'll be more explanatory. This madcap quest of mine, was it not understood between us from the beginning to be a fantastic whim, a poetical wild-goose chase, conceived entirely as an excuse for being some time in each other's company? To be whimsical, therefore, in pursuit of a whim, fanciful in the chase of a fancy, is surely but to maintain the spirit of the game.  

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