It was now the latter end of October, and the season being wet, the autumnal rains had swelled brooks into rivers, when our soldier, in his way to the parsonage, perceiving the young lady in a shrubbery by the summer-house before mentioned, hastened to join her, over a long plank which connected the banks of a rivulet, that passed the lower walks of their pleasure-ground, instead of taking a circuit of thirty yards to a regular bridge. The place where he was to cross being a small level at the bottom of a steep hill, formed a kind of pond, supplied by the cascade from the upper ground, and now deepened by the great accumulation of water. The plank being slippery, and Hamilton not having completely recovered the dextrous command of his limb, he tumbled into the pool and entirely disappeared. Mr. Wentbridge, who was in a distant part of the shrubbery, aroused by a single shriek, ran to the spot whence the voice had issued, and found his daughter in a swoon, whence being by his efforts recovered, she awoke only to misery, and called on the name of Hamilton, in the wildest phrenzy of despairing love. The worthy clergyman, who had before suspected the passion of his daughter, was now apprehensive that some dreadful disaster had befallen its object. He had been able to remove Eliza to a mossy bench, and she was still, in terms of the most endearing affection, deploring the beloved youth; when, descending from the summer-house, he presented himself safe and sound, though all dropping with wet. Our Major had been stunned by the sudden plunge, but soon recovering had swam to the bottom of the bank, and waded farther down, where he saw the ascent was more practicable, and, missing the nearest path, had through the labyrinth of a grove found a difficulty in regaining a view of the summer-house, to which the way was entangled by copse and briars, and hence so much time had elapsed before his return. He with rapture heard his Eliza bewailing his fate. When she was so far recovered as to be conscious of his return, first her astonishment, her anxious doubts, and lastly her joy, gave her lover the conviction which he had so eagerly desired to receive. The considerate care of the father hastened him away to the comforts of a fire and dry clothes, before he would suffer him to explain the circumstances of his escape to the young lady, who still appeared to entertain an unsettled belief of the reality. In an hour Hamilton completely readjusted, and secure from every disagreeable effect of this involuntary cold bath, was alive only to the delightful sensations which its effects had produced.