Page:Far from the Maddening Girls.djvu/204

 sped away at my approach, across this crackling carpet — squirrels, sitting up at a safe distance to survey me, with their forepaws held coquettishly against their breasts: rabbits, pausing for a single glance at the intruder, and then whipping out of sight among the brush: partridges, rushing for a few paces over the leaves, and then whirring upward like rising rockets.

I have said intruder, for such, as I walked, I felt myself to be. I cannot particularize the sense of isolation which touched me, further than to say that in a world of activity and varied interest I alone was idle and ill-content. I can only hope that the feeling is one which others have shared, for there is no describing or explaining it. It comes upon you out of nothingness, and presently is gone again, unsatisfied. For the life of you you cannot tell what thing it is you crave, but more than life you crave it!

Albeit I had started with a definite end in