e took up the folds of her full white dress in her hands, and we set
out. The mood was upon me to take the old paths across the sloping
uplands into the woods on the hill that Helen and I had tramped over so
often in our childhood. Beneath us lay the sea, a wide plain of placid
waters, blue in the foreground, with opal tints playing over it as it
spread out toward the horizon; above us were the woods luxuriant in
their midsummer verdure, silent except for the occasional note of a wild
bird; and about us were the green fields, fresh mown of late, with
thickets of grape and wild convolvulus and star-wreathed
blackberry-vines making a luxuriant tangle over the fences.

Georgy walked before me in the narrow path, and I followed closely,
watching her fine free movements, the charm of her figure in its plain
white morning-dress bound at the waist with a purple ribbon. Her
golden-yellow hair lay in curls upon her shoulders: now and then I
caught a glimpse of the contour of her face as she half turned to see if
I were close behind her. Neither of us spoke for a long time.

My own thoughts flew about like leaves in a wind, but I wondered of what
she was thinking. Although I had known her all my life, she was not easy
for me to understand; or rather my impressions of her at this time were
so colored by the passion of my own hopes that it was impossible for me
to find a clew to her real feelings. Perhaps she was thinking of Jack:
she was thinking--I was sure she was thinking--of something sweet, sad
and strange, or she could not have looked so beautiful.

Suddenly she stopped in her walk and uttered a little cry. "It is wet
here," she cried with vexation: "we must turn back, Floyd."

"I said I would take care of you," I exclaimed quickly, and putting my
arms about her I raised her and carried her safely over the spot where a
hundred springs trickled up to the surface and made a morass of the
luxuriant grass. I did not set her down at once. For weeks now, sleeping
and waking, I had been haunted by a fierce longing to hold her to my
heart as I held her now, and it was not so easy to put by so great a
joy. When at last I reached the stile I released her, and she sat down
on the stone and looked at me with a half smile.

"If you call that taking care of me, Floyd--" said she, shaking her
head.

"You are not angry with me, Georgina?"

"How could I be angry with you?" she said, putting out her hand to me
and speaking so kindly th