dies on such occasions.

"Well, I can't help it," said a voice close ahead, and Freddy reared a
freckled face and a pair of snowy shoulders out of the fronds. "I can't
be trodden on, can I?"

"Good gracious me, dear; so it's you! What miserable management! Why not
have a comfortable bath at home, with hot and cold laid on?"

"Look here, mother, a fellow must wash, and a fellow's got to dry, and
if another fellow--"

"Dear, no doubt you're right as usual, but you are in no position to
argue. Come, Lucy." They turned. "Oh, look--don't look! Oh, poor Mr.
Beebe! How unfortunate again--"

For Mr. Beebe was just crawling out of the pond, On whose surface
garments of an intimate nature did float; while George, the world-weary
George, shouted to Freddy that he had hooked a fish.

"And me, I've swallowed one," answered he of the bracken. "I've
swallowed a pollywog. It wriggleth in my tummy. I shall die--Emerson you
beast, you've got on my bags."

"Hush, dears," said Mrs. Honeychurch, who found it impossible to remain
shocked. "And do be sure you dry yourselves thoroughly first. All these
colds come of not drying thoroughly."

"Mother, do come away," said Lucy. "Oh for goodness' sake, do come."

"Hullo!" cried George, so that again the ladies stopped.

He regarded himself as dressed. Barefoot, bare-chested, radiant and
personable against the shadowy woods, he called:

"Hullo, Miss Honeychurch! Hullo!"

"Bow, Lucy; better bow. Whoever is it? I shall bow."

Miss Honeychurch bowed.

That evening and all that night the water ran away. On the morrow the
pool had shrunk to its old size and lost its glory. It had been a
call to the blood and to the relaxed will, a passing benediction whose
influence did not pass, a holiness, a spell, a momentary chalice for
youth.

Chapter XIII: How Miss Bartlett's Boiler Was So Tiresome

How often had Lucy rehearsed this bow, this interview! But she had
always rehearsed them indoors, and with certain accessories, which
surely we have a right to assume. Who could foretell that she and George
would meet in the rout of a civilization, amidst an army of coats
and collars and boots that lay wounded over the sunlit earth? She had
imagined a young Mr. Emerson, who might be shy or morbid or indifferent
or furtively impudent. She was prepared for all of these. But she had
never imagined one who would be happy and greet her with the shout of
the morning star.

Indoors herself, partaking