repeated the lady , persuasively . `` The coach is ready , sir , '' said the servant , behind . The old couple started , reddened and hurried away , mutually wondering that they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so very ridiculous . The merchant threw himself back in the carriage and occupied his mind with the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of business . Meanwhile , David Swan enjoyed his nap . 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 XXXXX all his vague but passionate desires he yearned to meet .
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