is ugly and strong, the other graceful but unable to stand
alone?" asked Warwick, rising, with a gesture that sent the silvery
shreds flying away on the wind.

"One holds as much as the other, however; and I fancy the woman would
fill hers soonest if she had the wherewithal to do it. Do you know there
are berries on that hillside opposite?"

"I see vines, but consider fruit doubtful, for boys and birds are
thicker than blackberries."

"I've a firm conviction that they have left some for us; and as Mark
says you like frankness, I think I shall venture to ask you to row me
over and help me fill the baskets on the other side."

Sylvia looked up at him with a merry mixture of doubt and daring in her
face, and offered him his hat.

"Very good, I will," said Warwick, leading the way to the boat with an
alacrity which proved how much pleasanter to him was action than repose.

There was no dry landing-place just opposite, and as he rowed higher,
Adam fixed his eyes on Sylvia with a look peculiar to himself, a gaze
more keen than soft, which seemed to search one through and through with
its rapid discernment. He saw a face full of contradictions,--youthful,
maidenly, and intelligent, yet touched with the unconscious melancholy
which is born of disappointment and desire. The mouth was sweet and
tender as a woman's should be, the brow spirited and thoughtful; but the
eyes were by turns eager, absent, or sad, and there was much pride in
the carriage of the small head with its hair of wavy gold gathered into
a green snood, whence little tendrils kept breaking loose to dance upon
her forehead, or hang about her neck. A most significant but not a
beautiful face, because of its want of harmony. The dark eyes, among
their fair surroundings, disturbed the sight as a discord in music jars
upon the ear; even when the lips smiled the sombre shadow of black
lashes seemed to fill them with a gloom that was never wholly lost. The
voice, too, which should have been a girlish treble, was full and low as
a matured woman's, with now and then a silvery ring to it, as if another
and a blither creature spoke.

Sylvia could not be offended by the grave penetration of this glance,
though an uncomfortable consciousness that she was being analyzed and
tested made her meet it with a look intended to be dignified, but which
was also somewhat defiant, and more than one smile passed over Warwick's
countenance as he watched her. The moment the boat gl