Publisher's Synopsis
It was in a little woodland glen, with a streamlet tumbling through it. She sat with her back to a snowy birch-tree, gazing into the eddies of a pool below; and he lay beside her, upon the soft, mossy ground, reading out of a book of poems. Images of joy were passing before them; and there came four lines with a picture- "Hard by, a cottage-chimney smokes, From betwixt two aged oaks, Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, Are at their savory dinner set." "Ah!" said she. "I always loved that. Let us be Corydon and Thyrsis!" He smiled. "They were both of them men," he said. "Let us change it," she responded-"just between ourselves!" "Very well-Corydon!" said he. Then, after a moment's thought, she added, "But we didn't have the cottage." "No," said he-"nor even the dinner!"
