ow them. On the opposite bank two umbrellas were
vanishing through the field gate into the road, but the vicar had turned
and was waiting for them. They could see his becloaked figure leaning on
his stick through the light wreaths of mist that floated above the
tumbling stream. The abnormally heavy rain had ceased, but the clouds
seemed to be dragging along the very floor of the valley.

The stepping-stones came into sight. He leaped on the first and held out
his hand to her. When they started she would have refused his help with
scorn. Now, after a moment's hesitation she yielded, and he felt her
dear weight on him as he guided her carefully from stone to stone. In
reality it is both difficult and risky to be helped over
stepping-stones. You had much better manage for yourself; and half way
through Catherine had a mind to tell him so. But the words died on her
lips which smiled instead. He could have wished that passage from stone
to stone could have lasted for ever. She was wrapped up grotesquely in
his mackintosh; her hat was all bedraggled; her gloves dripped in his;
and in spite of all he could have vowed that anything so lovely as that
delicately cut, gravely smiling face, swaying above the rushing brown
water, was never seen in Westmoreland wilds before.

'It is clearing,' he cried, with ready optimism, as they reached the
bank. 'We shall get our picnic to-morrow after all--we _must_ get it!
Promise me it shall be fine--and you will be there!'

The vicar was only fifty yards away waiting for them against the field
gate. But Robert held her eagerly, imperiously,--and it seemed to her,
her head was still dizzy with the water.

'Promise!' he repeated, his voice dropping.

She could not stop to think of the absurdity of promising for
Westmoreland weather. She could only say faintly 'Yes!' and so release
her hand.

'You _are_ pretty wet!' said the vicar, looking from one to the other
with a curiosity which Robert's quick sense divined at once was directed
to something else than the mere condition of their garments. But
Catherine noticed nothing; she walked on wrestling blindly with she knew
not what till they reached the vicarage gate. There stood Mrs.
Thornburgh, the light drizzle into which the rain had declined beating
unheeded on her curls and ample shoulders. She stared at Robert's
drenched condition, but he gave her no time to make remarks.

'Don't take it off,' he said with a laughing wave of the hand to