And the little silver stream that whispered its secrets to the slim pine-trees, how it missed the pair! Many a time it wearily watched the winter wane and earth cast off her white mantle. The wild anemones came, the primroses and the crocuses and all that lovely company of fragile blooms which mark the footsteps of hope. "Oh, if he would but come now while I mirror so much beauty," the stream crooned to herself. Sometimes she would see among the flowers the reflection of the fair face he loved. Then the little stream was happy. "She at least remembers, and perhaps he will come soon," she sang in joy to the pine-trees. Then the grasses grew high, and the golden sunshine lured the dragon-flies to flit among the fragrant worlds along her course. Still he came not. She began to grow impatient. Perhaps her heart would be dried up before his children strolled by her side and waded in her clear water. The leaves began to fall, and the worlds along her course knew that the night was coming on. "He has forgotten," the stream moaned; "forgotten." And, hundreds of miles away, he heard her voice, and in the hold of an ice-bound ship wrote to his stream and his love, whom he called Cynthia, these tender verses: "Through Jersey groves a wandering stream That still its wonted music keeps Inspires no more my evening dream, Where Cynthia, in retirement, sleeps. "Sweet murmuring stream, how blest art thou To kiss the bank where she resides! Where nature decks the beechen bough That trembles o'er your shallow tides. "The cypress-tree on Hermit's height, Where love has soft addresses paid By Luna's pale reflected light, No longer charms me to its shade. "To me, alas! so far removed, What raptures, once, that scenery gave, Ere, wandering yet from all I loved, I sought a deeper, drearier wave. "Your absent charms my thoughts employ, I sigh to think how sweet you sung, And half adore the painted toy That near my careless heart you hung. "Now, fettered fast in icy fields, In vain we loose the sleeping sail; The frozen wave no longer yields, And useless blows the favoring gale. "Yet still in hopes of vernal showers And breezes moist with morning dew, I pass the lingering, lazy hours Reflecting on the spring--and you." Mammon proved a cruel and elusive mistress to Freneau, and she led him many a fruitless errand in pursuit of her. For several years he commanded the brig "Washington," owned by his brother Peter. In this ship he made many journeys to the West Indies, and by clever trading at last succeeded in amassing a small competence. With this he returned to Mount Pleasant Hall after an absence of nearly six years.