The boat had rounded the corner of the wharf and fell into its upward track, owing all its speed now to the rower's good arm; for a very strong down tide was running against them. They crept up, close under the shore, the oars almost touching the rocks; but always, as if a spirit of divination were in her, the little boat turned its head from the threatened danger, edged in and out of the mimic bays and hollows in the shores, and kept its steady onward way. The scene was a fairy-land scene now. Earth, water, and air, were sparkling with freshness and light. The sunlight lay joyously in the nest of the southern mountains, and looked over the East, and smiled on the heads of the hills in the north; while cool shadows began to walk along the western shore. Far up, a broad shoulder of the mountain stood out in bright relief under the sun's pencil; then lower down, the same pencil put a glory round the heads of the valley cedars; the valley was in shadow. Sharp and clear shewed sun-touched points of rock on the east shore, in glowing colours; and on the west the hills raised huge shadowy sides towards the sun, whom they threatened they would hide from his pensioners. And the sun stood on the mountain's brow and blinked at the world, and then dropped down; and the West had it! Not yet, but soon. The two girls were not unmindful of all the brightness about them, for their eyes made themselves very busy with it, and little low-toned talks were held which now and then let a word escape, of "pretty!" -- and "lovely!" -- and "wouldn't it be lovely to have a little boat here? -- I'll ask papa!" -- "Is it hard to row?" asked the last speaker suddenly of Winthrop. "No," he said, "not at all, wind and water quiet." "Aren't they quiet to-night?" "The tide is running down very strong. Asahel, trim the boat." "How on earth can such a child do anything to the boat?" said Miss Cadwallader. "What do you want done, sir?" "Nothing," he said. "It is done." "_What_ is done?" said the young lady, with a wondering face to her companion. "Oh aren't you hungry?" she added with a yawn. "I am, dreadfully. I hope we shall get a good supper." "Whereabouts is Mr. Landholm's house?" said Elizabeth presently. Winthrop lay on his oars to point it out to her. "_That?_" she said, somewhat expressively. "Then why don't you go straight there?" inquired her companion. "You are going directly the other way." A slight fiction; but the boat had turned into the bay, and was following the curve of its shores, which certainly led down deep into the land from the farmhouse point. "I go here for the eddy." "He is going right," said Asahel, who was sitting on the thwart next to the ladies. "Eddy?" said Miss Cadwallader, with a blank look at her cousin. "What is an eddy?" said Elizabeth. "The return water from a point the tide strikes against." Elizabeth eyed the water, the channel, and the _points_, and was evidently studying the matter out. "What a lovely place!" she said.