e; as blue as--he was gazing at something
the exact color--a spot of vivid azure that had appeared from among the
trees at the top of the opposite bank. It moved, and Gilbert saw that
it was the figure of a girl in a violet gown. She made a pretty rural
picture as she stood for a moment poised upon the fence-top, a white
sunbonnet on her head and a basket on her arm. She descended sedately,
holding her basket with great care, and tripped down the zigzag path to
the edge of the stream. Here some big, white stones, peeping from the
golden pools, made a passage to the other side, and the trim lassie
began to pick her way daintily across. Gilbert watched her with amused
pleasure. He seemed to have stepped into some old rustic ballad. What
was that song the boys used to sing at college? Something about the
pretty, dainty maiden, going a-haying, or a-Maying, or a-something, all
of a bright May morning, tra la la! This one was just like her, only
she should be in her bare feet, and carry a pail and a stool, and be
coming down to milk that cow standing so placidly in the stream. He
felt an almost irresistible desire to sing out, "Where are you going,
my pretty maid?" If he were only a gallant youth, in a velvet cloak
and silken hose, he reflected, instead of a commonplace
nineteenth-century young man in gray tweed, he would go down the bank
and assist her over. The situation absolutely demanded it.

Suddenly he arose, with a smothered laugh. He would have to take a
part in the pretty comedy, after all, for the dainty damsel was in
distress. She stood poised on a stone in midstream, like a bird
desiring, yet not daring, to fly. A long leap was needed to land her
on the next stone, and she paused, perplexed, evidently mindful of her
eggs. Gilbert came quickly down the bank, his eyes twinkling.

"May I help you across?" he asked, coming toward her, hat in hand. He
felt that the words fell into a sort of jaunty rhythm of their own
accord.

The girl looked up quickly, startled at his sudden appearance. The
movement caused her sunbonnet to slip back, revealing her face, and
Gilbert felt suddenly and unaccountably abashed, for the girl looked
straight into his amused face with a glance of grave and unapproachable
dignity. He did not even notice, at first, how pretty she was. He saw
only those serious eyes. They were wonderful eyes, too; deep, and of a
strange, elusive amber, like the water at her feet. They hel