To make the circuit necessary to cross by the rustic bridge at the Kelpie's-pool (where, as all in Carrick know, a belated wayfarer was drowned by the river fiend) would have kept them too late, so Quentin took Flora in his arms to bear her through the stream, at a ford which was well known to him, and when the water was about four feet in depth. "Dear Quentin, you will never be able to carry me," said Flora, laughing heartily at the arrangement; "I am sure that I am much too heavy." "Not for me, Flora--come, let us try." "Should you fall?" "Well, Flora?" "You will be swept away and drowned." "I care not if you are safe," said he, gallantly; and, like a brave lad, he felt what he said. "But I would be drowned too, you rash boy," said she, with a charming smile. "Then a ballad would be made about us, like so many lovers we have heard of and read about. Perhaps the Kelpie would be blamed for the whole catastrophe," replied Quentin, laughing, as lie clasped her tightly in his arms. He was confident and bold, and the kind of training he underwent at the hands of our military friend, Mr. John Girvan, the gamekeeper, and others, made him hardy and strong beyond his years, yet he felt his fair Flora a heavier weight than he had quite reckoned on. His high spirit gave him strength, however, and bearing her high upon his breast and shoulder, with her skirts gathered tightly round her, he boldly entered the rushing stream. Then for the first time, when he felt her soft warm arm and delicate hand clasping his neck, half fearfully and half caressingly; when her cheek was close to his; when her breath mingled with his own, and her thick dark hair swept over his face, a strange and joyous thrill ran through him--a new and giddy emotion took possession of his heart. Mysterious longings, aspirations, and hopes glowed within him, and in mid-stream, even when the foaming water swept past with stones and clay, and roots of aged trees, Quentin did what he had never done before, he pressed his lips--and his soul seemed on them--again and again to those of Flora Warrender, and he murmured he knew not what in her ear, and she did not repel him. Her excitement, perhaps, was too great; but we suspect that she was partly frightened and partly pleased. He landed her safely on the opposite bank, and again the castle-bell was heard waking the echoes of the woods. The Girvan was passed now, and to speak metaphorically, that classic stream, the Rubicon, too! They had divined the great secret of their hearts, and, hand in hand, in happy but thoughtful silence--Quentin, however, seeming the most abashed--they returned to Rohallion, both powerfully agitated by the new and sudden turn their affection seemed to have taken. When their eyes met, their pulses quickened, and their colour came and went.