There was a young lady of the neighbourhood [near Aldworth in Surrey where [Tennyson] had a country house] the dream of whose romantic soul was to be
introduced to him. Her heart's desire was granted her, and they sat down side by side on a garden seat. Dead silence fell: she was far too rapt and reverent and overpowered to speak, and he had nothing to say. Suddenly he found something to say, and he pronounced these appalling word, "Your stays creak."

Nearly swooning with horror and deeply hurt at this absolutely unfounded accusation, she fled from him without a word, and recovered her composure as
best she might by converse with less alarming folk. Presently she observed that he was stalking her; she tripped from one gay group to another, and
always the poet followed her, like a bloodhound on her trail. The dream of her soul had turned into a nightmare: certainly he was after her, and who could tell what he would say next? She dodged and she doubled, she hid
behind trees, but she could not shake him off. Then she made a dreadful tactical error, for she scurried up a long path in the kitchen-garden hoping to distance him beyond pursuit, only to find that she had entered a cul-de-sac bordered by cabbages and asparagus and closed at the far end by the potting-shed. She fumbled at the latch, intending to hide herself from the dreadful presence, but it was locked, and now he closed in on her. "I beg your pardon," he said, "it was my braces." '