thing, certainly, that in my years
of fortune I should never taste happiness, and now when I am broke,
enjoy so much of it, for was I ever happier than to-day? Was the grass
softer, the stream pleasanter in sound, the air milder, the heart more
at peace? Why should I not sink? To dig--why, after all, it should be
easy. To take a mate, too? Love is of all grades since Jupiter; love
fails to none; and children"--but here he passed his hand suddenly over
his eyes. "O fool and coward, fool and coward!" he said bitterly; "can
you forget your fetters? You did not know that I was fettered, Nance?"
he asked, again addressing her.

But Nance was somewhat sore. "I know you keep talking," she said, and,
turning half away from him, began to wring out a sheet across her
shoulder. "I wonder you are not wearied of your voice. When the hands
lie abed the tongue takes a walk."

Mr. Archer laughed unpleasantly, rose and moved to the water's edge. In
this part the body of the river poured across a little narrow fell, ran
some ten feet very smoothly over a bed of pebbles, then getting wind, as
it were, of another shelf of rock which barred the channel, began, by
imperceptible degrees, to separate towards either shore in dancing
currents, and to leave the middle clear and stagnant. The set towards
either side was nearly equal; about one half of the whole water plunged
on the side of the castle, through a narrow gullet; about one half ran
lipping past the margin of the green and slipped across a babbling
rapid.

"Here," said Mr. Archer, after he had looked for some time at the fine
and shifting demarcation of these currents, "come here and see me try my
fortune."

"I am not like a man," said Nance; "I have no time to waste."

"Come here," he said again. "I ask you seriously, Nance. We are not
always childish when we seem so."

She drew a little nearer.

"Now," said he, "you see these two channels--choose one."

"I'll choose the nearest, to save time," said Nance.

"Well, that shall be for action," returned Mr. Archer. "And since I wish
to have the odds against me, not only the other channel but yon stagnant
water in the midst shall be for lying still. You see this?" he
continued, pulling up a withered rush. "I break it in three. I shall put
each separately at the top of the upper fall, and according as they go
by your way or by the other I shall guide my life."

"This is very silly," said Nance, with a movement of her shoulders.