The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two when a pretty young girl came along with a tripping pace which showed precisely how her little heart was dancing in her bosom . Perhaps it was this merry kind of motion that caused -- is there any harm in saying it ? -- her garter to slip its knot . Conscious that the silken girth -- if silk it were -- was relaxing its hold , she turned aside into the shelter of the maple trees , and there found a young man asleep by the spring . Blushing as red as any rose that she should have intruded into a gentleman 's bedchamber , and for such a purpose too , she was about to make her escape on tiptoe . But there was peril near the sleeper . A monster of a bee had been wandering overhead -- buzz , buzz , buzz -- now among the leaves , now flashing through the strips of sunshine , and now lost in the dark shade , till finally he appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David Swan . The sting of a bee is sometimes deadly . As free-hearted as she was innocent , the girl attacked the intruder with her handkerchief , brushed him soundly and drove him from beneath the maple shade . How sweet a picture ! This good deed accomplished , with quickened breath and a deeper blush she stole a glance at the youthful stranger for whom she had been battling with a dragon in the air . `` He is handsome ! '' thought she , and blushed redder yet . How could it be that no dream of bliss grew so strong within him that , shattered by its very strength , it should part asunder and allow him to perceive the girl among its phantoms ? Why , at least , did no smile of welcome brighten upon his face ? She was come , the maid whose soul , according to the old and beautiful idea , had been severed from his own , and whom in all his vague but passionate desires he yearned to meet . Her only could he love with a perfect love , him only could she receive into the depths of her heart , and now her image was faintly blushing in the fountain by his side ; should it pass away , its happy lustre would never gleam upon his life again . `` How sound he sleeps ! '' murmured the girl . She departed , but did not trip along the road so lightly as when she came .
Now , this girl 's father was a thriving country merchant in the neighborhood , and happened at that identical time to be looking out for just such a young man as David XXXXX .
Swan bedchamber brighten escape garter heart image love phantoms sting