Afraid to take refuge beneath the trees at the summit, and incapable of effecting Fred’s removal to the foot, Florence laid him beneath the projecting bank which had formed their seat, and tried to revive him by bathing his forehead with the cool water from the spring. But ere long all her efforts had to be centered in sheltering him from a pelting shower that came down fast and furiously. By wrapping her own mantle around the child she succeeded in keeping him tolerably safe; but her own dress of some thin material was soon drenched, and she began to reckon the moments since Walter’s departure, and long impatiently for the appearance of the chaise. As she stood up to gaze along the silent highway, a gentleman, riding in the opposite direction, came in sight, and his eye was caught by her figure. It was something so entirely out of the common way to see a lady in this solitary spot, especially with a storm raging around her, that he checked his steed and looked again. This minuter survey of the graceful form on the heights ended in his dismounting, securing his reins to a sapling, and commencing the ascent of the hill. Florence neither saw nor heard his approach. She had been too much absorbed in her own chilly condition and the plaints of Fred; and, returning to the boy, she was kneeling by his side, trying to soothe the terrors which made him cry and tremble every time the hoarse muttering of the thunder was audible. The first thing that made her aware that they were no longer alone was the snapping of some branches beneath a heavy foot. The next moment the bushes were parted, and Mr. Aylwinne appeared. Too much astonished to speak, she rose and stood before him like a beautiful statue of silence--her parted lips, her varying color, alone betraying the pleasure she could not help feeling at his coming. But when he drew nearer and began to ask with solicitude the reason he found her here, she remembered herself, and, withdrawing the hand he had taken, gave a curt explanation. He bent compassionately over Fred, and then eyed her more steadfastly than before. “But your dress is wet, your shoulders quite unprotected! How long do you say Walter has started? You must let me put my coat around you.” But this Florence would not permit, and made light of the fears he expressed. “I shall catch a cold, perhaps, but it is unavoidable; or, rather, I have nothing to blame for it but my own folly in not watching the weather more carefully.” Mr. Aylwinne’s uneasiness on her account was not appeased by this careless speech; and Florence, whom it alternately vexed and flattered, was thankful when the pony carriage came in sight. Wrapping Fred in the coat she had refused, Mr. Aylwinne raised the boy in his arms to carry him down the hill, and Florence prepared to follow; but after taking two or three steps he looked back, and warned her not to attempt it.