or you?" said she. "Surely it is for all the world; and if
your country is somewhat backward, it will come into line before long.
Or," she said quickly, "are you thinking that you must soon go back
again? I will make my proposal which I told you of at once, and so
perhaps put an end to your anxiety. I was going to propose that you
should live with us where we are going. I feel quite old friends with
you, and should be sorry to lose you." Then she smiled on me, and said:
"Do you know, I begin to suspect you of wanting to nurse a sham sorrow,
like the ridiculous characters in some of those queer old novels that I
have come across now and then."

I really had almost begun to suspect it myself, but I refused to admit so
much; so I sighed no more, but fell to giving my delightful companion
what little pieces of history I knew about the river and its borderlands;
and the time passed pleasantly enough; and between the two of us (she was
a better sculler than I was, and seemed quite tireless) we kept up fairly
well with Dick, hot as the afternoon was, and swallowed up the way at a
great rate. At last we passed under another ancient bridge; and through
meadows bordered at first with huge elm-trees mingled with sweet chestnut
of younger but very elegant growth; and the meadows widened out so much
that it seemed as if the trees must now be on the bents only, or about
the houses, except for the growth of willows on the immediate banks; so
that the wide stretch of grass was little broken here. Dick got very
much excited now, and often stood up in the boat to cry out to us that
this was such and such a field, and so forth; and we caught fire at his
enthusiasm for the hay-field and its harvest, and pulled our best.

At last as we were passing through a reach of the river where on the side
of the towing-path was a highish bank with a thick whispering bed of
reeds before it, and on the other side a higher bank, clothed with
willows that dipped into the stream and crowned by ancient elm-trees, we
saw bright figures coming along close to the bank, as if they were
looking for something; as, indeed, they were, and we--that is, Dick and
his company--were what they were looking for. Dick lay on his oars, and
we followed his example. He gave a joyous shout to the people on the
bank, which was echoed back from it in many voices, deep and sweetly
shrill; for there were above a dozen persons, both men, women, and
children. A tall handso