But with all this hesitation, she still advanced. She crossed Madron churchyard, and went out of her way to drop a flower on the grave of a cousin who lay there, making a longer pause on the occasion than any which had previously interrupted her walk. However, she proceeded at last, and soon turned aside from the main road by a tiny streamlet. She followed the rivulet's course, as it wound along beneath a bank covered in the summer with broom, gorse, and heather, from amidst which, here and there, a graceful silver birch flung its long tresses on the breeze, until she arrived at a sort of bay or inlet, where the trees grew more thickly, and in the very depth of which lay, still, silent, and dark, encircled by rude stone-work, a well of water, the source of the streamlet which had guided the maiden's steps--St. Madron's Well. Mercy cast a sharp glance before her, and was glad to see that there was no person near the fountain. She went up to it herself, and bent over the mirror-like surface, and might see her image rising dimly to meet the salute. Could that limpid water tell a maiden's fortune? Was it conscious of the reflection of her features? Could it read their gentle lines, and foreshow by any ripple of its own, the destiny of her who looked upon it? And was such inquiry sanctioned by the saint who had blessed the fountain? Was it not profane so to forestall futurity? Such questions flitted vaguely through Mercy's bosom while she gazed into the tranquil well. An expression of awe stole over her face; and when, as she changed her position, a straggling briar which had caught her cloak twitched it, she started like a guilty thing, and turned suddenly with a flush on her cheeks and forehead, deeper even than that called forth by exercise. She did not smile on discovering the source of her alarm, but began to search among the pebbles of the brook for some smoother and rounder than common. Having collected two or three of this description, she returned to the fountain, and from trembling fingers, and with eyes half afraid to watch the result, dropped one of the stones into the water. There was a little splash, and then the circling wavelets grew larger and larger, and broke against the sides of the well, and a new ripple arose from each point of contact, and the undulations crossed one another in every direction, and became fainter and fainter, until the surface once more motionless, again presented the maiden with the semblance of her own pretty features, just as she saw them before the disturbance.