She did make the effort. With desperate steadiness she stepped into the boat where Mrs Grey was seated. She was conscious that Philip watched to see what she would do, and then seated Maria and himself in the other boat. Hope followed Margaret. If he had been in the same boat with Enderby, the temptation to throw him overboard would have been too strong. Till they were past the weir and the lock, and all the erections belonging to the village, and to the great firm which dignified it, the boats were rowed. Conversation went on. The grey church steeple was pronounced picturesque, as it rose above the trees; and the children looked up at Dr Levitt, as if the credit of it by some means belonged to him, the rector. Sydney desired his younger sisters not to trail their hands through the water, as it retarded the passage of the boat. The precise distance of the ruins from Deerbrook ferry was argued, and Dr Levitt gave some curious traditions about the old abbey they were going to see. Then towing took the place of rowing, and the party became very quiet. The boat cut steadily through the still waters, the slight ripple at the bows being the only sound which marked its progress. Dr Levitt pointed with his stick to the "verdurous wall" which sprang up from the brink of the river, every spray of the beech, every pyramid of the larch, every leaf of the oak, and the tall column of the occasional poplar, reflected true as the natural magic of light and waters could make them. Some then wished the sun would come out, without which it could scarcely be called seeing the woods. Others tried to recognise the person who stood fishing under the great ash; and it took a minute or two to settle whether it was a man or a boy; and two minutes more to decide that it was nobody belonging to Deerbrook. Margaret almost wondered that Edward could talk on about these things as he did--so much in his common tone and manner. But for his ease and steadiness in small talk, she should suppose he was striving to have her left unnoticed, to look down into the water as strenuously as she pleased. She little knew what a training he had had in wearing his usual manner while his heart was wretched. "There, now!" cried Fanny, "we have passed the place--the place where cousin Margaret fell in last winter. We wanted to have gone directly over it." Margaret looked up, and caught Sydney's awe-struck glance. He had not yet recovered from that day. "If you had mentioned it sooner," said Margaret, "I could have shown you the very place. We did pass directly over it." "Oh, why did you not tell us? You should have told us."