Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/256

 on the Thames; sometimes a position in the county, a seat in parliament, or a peerage long dormant in a race of squires.

Whatever it may be the pursuer follows it at the best speed he can command, finding, usually, that the faster he goes the faster it flies before him; and when he comes up with it at last to enfold the phantom in his longing embrace, behold! it crumbles away to disappointment in his very arms.

I have seen Cerito dancing her famous shadow-dance; I have watched a child following its own retreating figure, lengthened to gigantic proportions in an afternoon sun, with shouts of wonder and delight; I once observed, perhaps the prettiest sight of the three, a thorough-bred foal gallop up to some park-palings, to wince and scour away from the distorted representation of a race-horse it met there, in the wild, graceful freedom of a yet unbridled youth; and I have thought