d homeward through
the dusky fields.

But the man was no nearer or plainer because she had taken him from the
main road and placed him on the river; he seemed, indeed, more distant
and shadowy than before.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

"The burnished dragon-fly is thine attendant,
And tilts against the field,
And down the listed sunbeam rides resplendent,
With steel-blue mail and shield."

--LONGFELLOW.

Miss Lois came home excited. She had seen a left-handed man. True, he
was a well-known farmer of the neighborhood, a jovial man, apparently
frank and honest as the daylight. But there was no height of
impossibility impossible to Miss Lois when she was on a quest. She
announced her intention of going to his farm on the morrow under the
pretext of looking at his peonies, which, she had been told, were
remarkably fine, "for of course I made inquiries immediately, in order
to discover the prominent points, if there were any. If it had been
onions, I should have been deeply interested in them just the same."

Anne, obliged for the present to let Miss Lois make the tentative
efforts, listened apathetically; then she mentioned her wish to row on
the river.

"Better stay at home," said Miss Lois. "Then I shall know you are safe."

"But I should like to go, if merely for the air," replied Anne. "My head
throbs as I sit here through the long hours. It is not that I expect to
accomplish anything, though I confess I _am_ haunted by the river, but
the motion and fresh air would perhaps keep me from thinking so
constantly."

"I am a savage," said Miss Lois, "and you shall go where you please. The
truth is, Ruth, that while I am pursuing this matter with my mental
faculties, _you_ are pursuing it with the inmost fibres of your heart."
(The sentence was mixed, but the feeling sincere.) "I will go down this
very moment, and begin an arrangement about a boat for you."

She kept her word. Anne, sitting by the window, heard her narrating to
Mrs. Blackwell a long chain of reasons to explain the fancy of her niece
Ruth for rowing. "She inherits it from her mother, poor child," said the
widow, with the sigh which she always gave to the memory of her departed
relatives. "Her mother was the daughter of a light-house keeper, and
lived, one might say, afloat. Little Ruthie, as a baby, used to play
boat; her very baby-talk was full of sailor words. _You_ haven't any
kind of a row-boat she could use, have you?