The camel's backbone is broken. This last innuendo--in weight a straw--has done it. I speak never a word; but I rise up hastily, and, letting my novel fall heavily prone on the pit of its stomach at the punt-bottom, I take a flying leap to shore--_toward_ shore, I should rather say--for I am never a good jumper--Tou Tou's lean spider-legs can always outstride me--and now I fall an inch or two short, and draw one leg out booted with river-mud. But I pay no heed. I hurry on, pushing through the brambles, and leaving a piece of my gown on each. Before I have gone five yards--his length of limb and freedom from petticoats giving him the advantage over me--he overtakes me. "What _has_ happened? at this rate you will not have much gown left by the time you reach the house." To my excited ears, there seems to be a suspicion of laughter in his voice. I disdain to answer. The path we are pursuing is not the regular one; it is a short cut through the wood. At its widest it is very narrow; and, a little ahead of us, a bramble has thrown a strong arm right across it, making a thorny arch, and forbidding passage. By a quick movement, Mr. Musgrave gets in advance of me, and, turning round, faces me at this defile. "What _has_ happened?" Still I remain stubbornly silent. "We are not going to fight, at this time of day, such old friends as we are?" The red-anger light has died out of his eyes. They look softer, and yet less languid, than I have ever seen them before; and there is subdued appeal and entreaty in his lowered voice. At the present moment, I distinctly dislike him. I think him altogether trying and odious, and I should be glad--yes, _glad_, if Vick were to bite a piece out of his leg; but, at the same time, I cannot deny that I have seldom seen any thing comelier than the young man who now stands before me, with the green woodland lights flickering about the close-shorn beauty of his face--he is well aware that his are not features that need _planting out_--while a lively emotion quickens all his lazy being. "We are _not_ old friends! Let me pass!" "_New_ friends, then--_friends_, at all events!" coming a step nearer, and speaking without a trace of sneer, sloth, or languor. "Not friends at all! Let me pass!" "Not until you tell me my offense--not until you own that we are friends!" (in a tone of quick excitement, and almost of authority, that, in him, is new to me). "Then we shall stay here all night!" reply I, with a fine obstinacy, plumping down, as I speak, on the wayside grass, among the St. John's-worts, and the red arum-berries. In a moment he has stepped aside, and is holding the stout purple bramble-stem out of my way. "Pass, then!" he says, in a tone of impatience, frowning a little; "as you have said it, of course you will stick to it--right or wrong--or you would not be a woman; but, whether you confess it or not, we _are_ friends!"