ly, and we launched our horses through a
willow fringe and away over a soft, sandy intervale, riding knee to knee
till the wind whistled in our ears and the sand rose fountain high at
every stride of our bounding horses.

"Ah!" she sighed, drawing bridle. "That clears the heart of silly
troubles. Was it not glorious? Like a plunge to the throat in an
icy pool!"

Her face, radiant, transfigured, was turned to the north, where,
glittering under the westward sun, the sunny waters of the Vlaie
sparkled between green reeds and rushes. Beyond, smoky blue mountains
tumbled into two uneven walls, spread southeast and southwest, flanking
the flat valley of the Vlaie.

Thousands of blackbirds chattered and croaked and trilled and whistled
in the reeds, flitting upward, with a flash of scarlet on their wings;
hovering, dropping again amid a ceaseless chorus from the half-hidden
flock. Over the marshes slow hawks sailed, rose, wheeled, and fell; the
gray ducks, whose wings bear purple diamond-squares, quacked in the
tussock ponds, guarded by their sentinels, the tall, blue herons.
Everywhere the earth was sheeted with marsh-marigolds and violets.

Across the distant grassy flat two deer moved, grazing. We rode to the
east, skirting the marshes, following a trail made by cattle, until
beyond the flats we saw the green roof of the pleasure-house which Sir
William Johnson had built for himself. Our ride together was
nearly ended.

As at the same thought we tightened bridle and looked at each other
gravely.

"All rides end," I said.

"Ay, like happiness."

"Both may be renewed."

"Until they end again."

"Until they end forever."

She clasped her bare hands on her horse's neck, sitting with bent head
as though lost in sombre memories.

"What ends forever might endure forever," I said.

"Not our rides together," she murmured. "You must return to the South
one day. I must wed.... Where shall we be this day a year hence?"

"Very far apart, cousin."

"Will you remember this ride?"

"Yes," I said, troubled.

"I will, too.... And I shall wonder what you are doing."

"And I shall think of you," I said, soberly.

"Will you write?"

"Yes. Will you?"

"Yes."

Silence fell between us like a shadow; then:

"Yonder rides Sir George Covert," she said, listlessly.

I saw him dismounting before his door, but said nothing.

"Shall we move forward?" she asked, but did not stir a finger towards
the bridle lying on her