He had her already in his arms--he hardly felt her weight; but the loose plank swung and shook under his feet, and she clung to him with both her arms round his neck. He stopped in the middle of the rushing waters. "Suppose,"--he said, and his tone was strange;--"one, two, three, eyes shut, and a jump, and it would be over." "Don't talk so wickedly," she whispered; and he felt how her heart was beating.-- When he had carried her over, he still held her high above the ground. "I should like to try how long I could carry you without being tired," said he. And she: "I can't say I should like to try anything of the kind. I have had seats that were more comfortable, and I only wish I were safe over on the other side again;--but here we are at the Hermitage. Suppose all the people who ever walked about under these trees, were all to appear at once, what a curious masquerade it would be!" "I had rather do without them;" he said between his teeth. "Still, those must have been strange times," she continued, in a contemplative mood; "Pigtails and powder, and trumpery dress swords; and with these they played at being hermits and Arcadian shepherds: Nature is sure to avenge herself; turn her out as often as you please, and she always slips in again, in some disguise or other." "There are the swans;" and he pointed them out at some distance. She thought it a pretty sight to see the brooding mother placidly sitting upon her eggs, while her mate, in jealous haste, was vigilantly swimming his patrol all round the nest. "Do you hear him? how he hisses and threatens?" asked Walter. "Yes, and it makes me feel disquieted; almost as if he were agitated by human passion; and the contrast with the soft snow of his plumage makes it still more curious.--I could stand here and watch these creatures for hours together. Now let us go and sit in the hut, there is rain coming in those clouds." And in fact the first large drops were falling; pattering upon the bark roof of the hut; they heard the sweet spring rain, and smelt it, with the scent of a thousand blossoms wafted to them through the little cobweb-curtained window; and as they sat on the only bench, eating their breakfast off the roughhewn table, they looked through the open door over the surface of the water all fretted and rippled by the rain. The birds had ceased their song; and the two sat silent, listening to the splashing and streaming above their heads. "We can't even see to the other side," she said; "the rain is falling like a thick veil; shutting us out from the rest of the world--which would not be so great a loss after all." "It looks as if we really were upon some desert island in the deep sea;" he said, gazing on the water; "I only wish that shore were really farther off; and that we were floating far away out of sight." "A pretty Robinson you would make, to be sure, spoiled boy that you are!" "Why?--have I not all I want here with me?"