handkerchief was tied about her head, half covering her mouth,
and leaving visible in the twilight only the tip of her nose, a curl
of her hair, and her bright dark eyes, with their long bright lashes.
She was singing to herself as she came up to the bridge, with an
unconcerned and unconscious air. At sight of Michael she made a start
and a little nervous cry, so that he thought, poor lad, not knowing
the ways of women, that for all the pains she had been at to fetch
him she had somehow not expected him to be there.

She looked him over from head to foot, and her eyes gleamed from the
white kerchief.

"So you are going, after all," she said, and her voice seemed to him
the sweetest music he had ever heard. "I never believed you would,"
she added.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, and laughed a little. "But I suppose
there are girls enough in Iceland," and then she laughed outright.
"Only they can't be of much account up there."

"But I've heard they are very fine girls," he answered; "and it's a
fine country, too."

She tossed her head and laughed and swung her switch.

"Fine country! The idea! Fine company, fine people and a good time.
That's what a girl wants if she's worth anything."

"Then I suppose you will go back to London some day," he said.

"That doesn't follow," she answered. "There's father, you see; and,
oh, what a pity he can't live at Lague!"

"Do you like it so much?" he said.

"Like it?" she said, her eyes full of laughter. "Six big hungry
brothers coming home three times a day and eating up everything in
the house--it's delightful!"

She seemed to him magnificently beautiful.

"I dare say they'll spoil you before I come back," he said, "or
somebody else will."

She gave him a deliberate glance from her dark eyes, and then threw
back her head and laughed. He could see the heaving of her breast.
She laughed again--a fresh, merry laugh--and then he tried to laugh
too, thinking of the foolish thing he had said.

"But if there are plenty of girls up there," she said, slyly glancing
under her long lashes, "and they're so very wonderful, maybe you'll
be getting married before you come home again?"

"Maybe so," he said quietly, and looked vacantly aside.

There was a pause. Then a sharp snap or two broke the silence and
recalled him to the maiden by his side. She was only breaking up the
twig she had carried.

There was another pause, in which he could hear the rippl