pleasure to the fair village maidens who received it, but it was
a pleasure accompanied by electric shocks of excitement. A
girl's foot might perhaps be mentioned, if a fellow were daring
enough, but the line was rigidly drawn at the ankle, which was
not a part of the human frame ever alluded to in the polite
society of Edgewood at that time.

Rose, in her red linsey-woolsey dress and her squirrel furs and
cap, was the life of every gathering, and when Stephen took her
hand and they glided up stream, alone together in the crowd, he
used to wish that they might skate on and on up the crystal
ice-path of the river, to the moon itself, whither it seemed to
lead them.



THE GARDEN OF EDEN

But the Saco all this time was meditating of its surprises. The
snapping cold weather and the depth to which the water was frozen
were aiding it in its preparation for the greatest event of the
season. On a certain gray Saturday in March, after a week of
mild temperature, it began to rain as if, after months of
snowing, it really enjoyed a new form of entertainment. Sunday
dawned with the very flood-gates of heaven opening, so it seemed.
All day long the river was rising under its miles of unbroken
ice, rising at the threatening rate of four inches an hour.

Edgewood went to bed as usual that night, for the bridge at that
point was set too high to be carried away by freshets, but at