the bank was clothed
with pennywort, the green discs and yellowing fruity spires making
an exquisite patch of colour. In the shadow of bushes near at hand
hartstongue abounded, with fronds hanging to the length of an arm.

'Now,' said Tarrant, gaily, 'you shall have some blackberries. And he
went to gather them, returning in a few minutes with a large leaf
full. He saw that Nancy, meanwhile, had taken up the book from where he
dropped it to the ground; it lay open on her lap.

'Helmholtz! Away with him!'

'No; I have opened at something interesting.'

She spoke as though possession of the book were of vital importance to
her. Nevertheless, the fruit was accepted, and she drew off her gloves
to eat it. Tarrant seated himself on the ground, near her, and gradually
fell into a half-recumbent attitude.

'Won't you have any?' Nancy asked, without looking at him.

'One or two, if you will give me them.'

She chose a fine blackberry, and held it out. Tarrant let it fall into
his palm, and murmured, 'You have a beautiful hand.' When, a moment
after, he glanced at her, she seemed to be reading Helmholtz.

The calm of the golden afternoon could not have been more profound.
Birds twittered softly in the wood, and if a leaf rustled, it was
only at the touch of wings. Earth breathed its many perfumes upon the
slumberous air.

'You know,' said Tarrant, after a long pause, and speaking as though he
feared to break the hush, 'that Keats once stayed at Teignmouth.'

Nancy did not know it, but said 'Yes.' The name of Keats was familiar
to her, but of his life she knew hardly anything, of his poetry very
little. Her education had been chiefly concerned with names.

'Will you read me a paragraph of Helmholtz?' continued the other,
looking at her with a smile. 'Any paragraph, the one before you.'

She hesitated, but read at length, in an unsteady voice, something about
the Conservation of Force. It ended in a nervous laugh.

'Now I'll read something to you,' said Tarrant. And he began to repeat,
slowly, musically, lines of verse which his companion had never heard:

'_O what can ail thee, Knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering? The
sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing_.'

He went through the poem; Nancy the while did not stir. It was as
though he murmured melody for his own pleasure, rather than recited to
a listener; but no word was inaudible. Nancy knew that his eyes rested
upon her; she wished to smil