PART THE SECOND--SPRING
CHAPTER I: PASSING BY THE SCHOOL
It followed that, as the spring advanced, Dick walked abroad much
more frequently than had hitherto been usual with him, and was
continually finding that his nearest way to or from home lay by the
road which skirted the garden of the school. The first-fruits of
his perseverance were that, on turning the angle on the nineteenth
journey by that track, he saw Miss Fancy's figure, clothed in a
dark-gray dress, looking from a high open window upon the crown of
his hat. The friendly greeting resulting from this rencounter was
considered so valuable an elixir that Dick passed still oftener; and
by the time he had almost trodden a little path under the fence
where never a path was before, he was rewarded with an actual
meeting face to face on the open road before her gate. This brought
another meeting, and another, Fancy faintly showing by her bearing
that it was a pleasure to her of some kind to see him there but the
sort of pleasure she derived, whether exultation at the hope her
exceeding fairness inspired, or the true feeling which was alone
Dick's concern, he could not anyhow decide, although he meditated on
her every little movement for hours after it was made.
