, and there, solemnly thrusting
her hands into the lush grass, turned to the east and bathed her face
in the dew. It is a rite which must be performed alone, in silence;
and the morning sun must not surprise it.

"You've been terrible quick," remarked Cai, as she stepped down to
the foreshore again in the ghostly light. "You can't have stayed to
dabble your feet. Didn't think it wise, I s'pose? And I dare say
you're right."

From far ahead of them as they started again, the voices of the
singers came borne down the river; and again Miss Marty's memory
supplied the words of the song:

"The young men of our town, they might if they wo'ld--
For summer is a-comin' in to-day--
They might have built a ship and have gilded her with gold
In the merry merry morning of May."

"The young men . . . the young men . . . they might if they wo'ld."
Ah, Miss Marty, was it only the edge of the morning that heightened
the rose on your cheek by a little--a very little--as the sky paled?
And now the kingfishers were awake, and the woodlands nigh, and the
tide began to gather force as it neared the narrower winding channel.
To enter this they skirted a mud-flat, where the day, breaking over
the tree-tops and through the river mists, shone on scores upon
scores of birds gathered to await it--curlews, sandpipers, gulls in
rows like strings of jewels, here and there a heron standing sentry.
The assembly paid no heed to the passing boat.

Miss Marty gazed up at the last star fading in the blue. How clear
the morning was! How freshly scented beneath the shadow of the
woods! Her gaze descended upon the incongruous top-hat and
gold-laced livery of Scipio, touched with the morning sunshine.
She glanced around her and motioned to Cai Tamblyn to bring the boat
to shore by a grassy spit whence (as she knew) a cart-track led
alongshore through the young oak coppices to the village.

"And Scipio," she said, turning as she stepped out on the turf, "will
like a run in the woods."

She had walked on, maybe a hundred paces, before the absurdity of it
struck her. She had been thinking of Mr. Pope's line:

"When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

And at the notion of Scipio, in gilt-laced hat and livery, tearing
wildly through the undergrowth in the joy of liberty, she halted and
laughed aloud.

She was smiling yet when, at a turning of the leafy lane, she came
upon the prettiest innocent sight. On a cushi