As we slipped into the corner of the tamarack swamp my heart was beating high, my pulses racing with the recollection of all the tense moments in that grove ahead, since first I met her there. I know not with what feelings she entered. It was plain now even to me that she was masking them in a mood of lightness. She danced ahead over the new plank walk, and laughed back at me over her shoulder as she disappeared into the pines. A second later I found her sitting on the stone I had placed by the pool. She looked up out of the corners of her eyes. "I should think this would be a good place to wade," she said. "So it might," said I. "Do you want to try it?" "Do you want to run along to the turn by the road and wait?" The eyes still mocked me. "No," said I. She shook her head sadly. "And I did so want to wade," she sighed. "Really?" I asked. "Really, yes. I won't have a chance again for--oh, never, maybe." "Then of course I'll go ahead." I stepped over the brook, out of sight. A moment later I heard a soft splashing of the water, and a voice called, "I'm only six now. Oh, it's such fun--and so cold!" I made no reply. In fancy I could see her white feet in the water, her face tipped up in the shadows, her eyes large with delight. How sweet she was, how desirable! I stood lost in a rosy reverie, when suddenly I felt her beside me, and turned to meet her smile. "How you like the brook," I said. "How I love it!" she exclaimed. "Don't think me silly, but it really says secret things to me." "Such secrets as the stream told to Rossetti?" I asked. She looked away. "I said secret things," she answered. We moved on, around the bend by the road where the little picture of far hills came into view, and back into the dusk of the thickest pines. At the second crossing of the brook, I took her hand to steady her over the slippery stones, and when we were across, the mood and memories of the place had their way with us, and our hands did not unclasp. We walked on so together to the spot where we first had met, and where first the thrush had sounded for us his elfin clarion. There we stopped and listened, but there was no sound save the whisper of the pines. "The pines sound like soft midnight surf on the shore," she whispered. "I want the thrush," I whispered back. "I want the thrush!" "Yes," she said, raising her eyes to mine, "oh, yes!" And then, as we waited, our eyes meeting, suddenly he sang, far off across the tamaracks, one perfect call, and silence again. Her face was a glimmering radiance in the dusk. Her hand was warm in mine. Slowly my face sank toward hers, and our lips met--met for an instant when we were not masters of ourselves, when the bird song and the whispering pines wrought their pagan spell upon us.