Meanwhile he has been sending the canoe quietly along the winding water path, dipping the paddle with easy, rhythmic swings of his shoulders, pushing the blade astern through the clear water and swinging it, flashing and dripping, back for the next stroke. He had tossed his light cloth cap into the bottom of the canoe and had laid his coat over a thwart. The summer morning sunlight, slanting through the branches, wove quickly vanishing patterns in gold upon his brown hair. The tiny breeze, just a mere breath from the southwest, fragrant with the odor of damp, sun-warmed soil and greenery, stirred the sheer white shirt he wore and laid it in folds under the raised arm. The brook was rather shallow; everywhere the pebbled bottom was visible. It was a whimsical brook, full of sudden turns and twistings; rounding tiny promontories of alder and sheepberry, dipping into quiet bays where bush honeysuckles were dripping sweetness from their pale yellow funnels, skirting curving beaches of white sand where standing armies of purple flags held themselves stiffly at attention and restrained the invasion of the eager, swaying fern-rabble. [Illustration] He had gone several hundred yards by this time against the slow current, and now there was evident a change in the foliage lining the banks, even in the banks themselves. Artifice had aided nature. Pink and white and yellow lilies dotted the stream, while at a little distance a slender, graceful stone bridge arched from shore to shore. Woodbine clustered about it and threw cool, trembling leaf-shadows against the sunlit stones. The arch framed a charming vista of the brook beyond. The canoe slipped noiselessly under the bridge and the strip of shadow rested gratefully for an instant on Ethan’s face. On the left there was a momentary break in the foliage and a brief glimpse of a wide expanse of velvety turf. Then another turn, the canoe brushing aside the broad lily-pads, and the end of the journey had come, and, sitting with motionless paddle, he gazed spellbound. [Illustration] II.