and held out his hand to the lady. When she was upon his side of the
streamlet, and before he released the slender fingers, he bent and kissed
them; then, as there was no answering smile or blush, but only a quiet
withdrawal of the hand and a remark about the crystal clearness of the
brook, looked at her, with interrogation in his smile.

"What is that crested bird upon yonder bough," she asked,--"the one that
gave the piercing cry?"

"A kingfisher," he answered, "and cousin to the halcyon of the ancients.
If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, you need have
no fear of storms."

A tree, leafless, but purplish pink with bloom, leaned from the bank above
them. He broke a branch and gave it to her. "It is the Judas-tree," he
told her. "Iscariot hanged himself thereon."

Around the trunk of a beech a lizard ran like a green flame, and they
heard the distant barking of a fox. Large white butterflies went past
them, and a hummingbird whirred into the heart of a wild honeysuckle that
had hasted to bloom. "How different from the English forests!" she said.
"I could love these best. What are all those broad-leaved plants with the
white, waxen flowers?"

"May-apples. Some call them mandrakes, but they do not rise shrieking, nor
kill the wight that plucks them. Will you have me gather them for you?"

"I will not trouble you," she answered, and presently turned aside to pull
them for herself.