"In some way it reminds me of you," replied he, giving it to her with a shake of the head. "I don't see how, but it does!" Cornelia gave him a sharp side-look, to make out if he was sincere; but his face at the moment was in shadow. "Perhaps because it pricked your finger," said she. She had not spoken loud, and was almost startled when his reply showed he had heard her. There was again that expression of marvellous efficiency and power in his face and bearing, but combined with one partly doubt and partly shrewd scrutiny. "I plucked the bud all the same," he remarked. Cornelia, for some reason, felt a little provoked and a little frightened. He wasn't entirely unsophisticated after all; and she felt quite uncertain where the ignorance ended and the knowledge began. She put the bud in her hair, and they walked on, Bressant being now at her side, instead of behind. The path was hardly wide enough for two, and now and then she felt her shoulder touch his arm. Every time this happened, she fancied her companion gave a kind of involuntary start, and looked around at her with a quick, inquiring expression--fancied, for she did not meet his look, being herself conscious of a sort of irregularity of the breath and pulse attending these contacts, which she could not understand, and did not feel altogether at ease about. Certainly, there was something odd in this Bressant! Cornelia hardly knew whether he strongly repelled or powerfully attracted her. She had half a mind to run back to the house. At this moment, however, they arrived at the fountain, and stood silently contemplating its weak, persistent struggles. The heavy rain had not raised its spirits a whit; but neither had it lessened its sense of duty to be performed. It labored just as hard if not harder than ever. Presently Bressant walked round to the opposite side of the basin, shook himself and stamped his feet, like one overcoming a feeling of drowsiness, and then, stooping down, put his hand in the water and brought some up to his forehead. It passed through Cornelia's mind that she had read in her "Natural Philosophy," at school, that water was a good conductor of electricity, but she could not establish any clear connection between her remembrance of this fact and Bressant's action. The results of thoughts often present themselves to us when the processes remain invisible. "What an absurd little fountain!" observed he, coming round again to Cornelia, and looking down upon her with a smile that seemed to call for a responsive one from her. "What is the use of it?" "Oh, we're used to it, you know; and then that little sound it makes is pleasant to listen to." "Is it?" said Bressant, apparently struck by the idea. "I should like to hear it. 'A pleasant sound!' I never thought of a sound being pleasant."