Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/78

 lack of spirit. It crawled and fluttered up the vine, trailing a crumpled wing most sadly, and I took it for my lesson. Assuredly they were not to be caught with any profit—at least not brutally in an eager hand. Brush them ever so lightly and the bloom is off the wings. They are to be watched in their pretty flitting, loved only in their freedom and from afar, with no clumsy reachings. That was a good thing to know in any world.

The Argus announced my home-coming with a fine flourish of my title in Solon's best style. It said that I had come back to take up the practice of the law. Not even Solon knew that I had come back to the memory of her.

This is how it befell that I was presently engrossed to outward seeming with the affairs of Little Arcady—even to the extent of a casual Potts, and those blessed contingencies that were later to unfold from him. Thus I took my allotted place and the years began.