specimen of the human race was coming, lightly and gracefully skimming
the moss, above salt-water reach, of the stepping-stones. The steps
are said to be a thousand years old, and probably are of half that age,
belonging to a time when sound work was, and a monastery flourished
in the valley. Even though they come down from great Hercules himself,
never have they been crossed by a prettier foot or a fairer form than
now came gayly over them. But the rabbits made no account of that. To
the young man with the adze they were quite accustomed, and they liked
him, because he minded his own business, and cared nothing about theirs;
but of this wandering maiden they had no safe knowledge, and judged the
worst, and all rushed away, some tenscore strong, giving notice to him
as they passed the boat that he also had better be cautious.

Daniel was in a sweet temper now, by virtue of hard labor and gratified
wit. By skill and persistence and bodily strength he had compassed a
curve his father had declared impossible without a dock-yard. Three
planks being fixed, he was sure of the rest, and could well afford to
stop, to admire the effect, and feel proud of his work, and of himself
the worker. Then the panic of the conies made him turn his head, and the
quick beat of his heart was quickened by worse than bodily labor.

Miss Dolly Darling was sauntering sweetly, as if there were only one
sex in the world, and that an entirely divine one. The gleam of spring
sunset was bright in her hair, and in the soft garnish of health on
her cheeks, and the vigorous play of young life in her eyes; while the
silvery glance of the sloping shore, and breezy ruffle of the darkening
sea, did nothing but offer a foil for the form of the shell-colored
frock and the sky-blue sash.

Young Daniel fell back upon his half-shaped work, and despised it, and
himself, and everything, except what he was afraid to look at. In the
hollow among the sand-hills where the cradle of the boat was, fine
rushes grew, and tufts of ragwort, and stalks of last year's thistles,
and sea-osiers where the spring oozed down. Through these the white
ribs of the rising boat shone forth like an elephant's skeleton; but
the builder entertained some hope, as well as some fear, of being
unperceived.

But a far greater power than his own was here. Curved and hollow ships
are female in almost all languages, not only because of their curves and
hollows, but also because they are craft