straw hat with a flexible brim that left her lips and chin in the sun,
and, sometimes nodding, sent forth a light of promising eyes. Across her
shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose curls, brown in shadow, almost
golden where the ray touched them. She was simply dressed, befitting
decency and the season. On a closer inspection you might see that her
lips were stained. This blooming young person was regaling on
dewberries. They grew between the bank and the water. Apparently she
found the fruit abundant, for her hand was making pretty progress to her
mouth. Fastidious youth, which revolts at woman plumping her exquisite
proportions on bread-and-butter, and would (we must suppose) joyfully
have her scraggy to have her poetical, can hardly object to dewberries.
Indeed the act of eating them is dainty and induces musing. The dewberry
is a sister to the lotus, and an innocent sister. You eat: mouth, eye,
and hand are occupied, and the undrugged mind free to roam. And so it
was with the damsel who knelt there. The little skylark went up above
her, all song, to the smooth southern cloud lying along the blue: from a
dewy copse dark over her nodding hat the blackbird fluted, calling to her
with thrice mellow note: the kingfisher flashed emerald out of green
osiers: a bow-winged heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude a boat
slipped toward her, containing a dreamy youth; and still she plucked the
fruit, and ate, and mused, as if no fairy prince were invading her
territories, and as if she wished not for one, or knew not her wishes.
Surrounded by the green shaven meadows, the pastoral summer buzz, the
weir-fall's thundering white, amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers,
she was a bit of lovely human life in a fair setting; a terrible
attraction. The Magnetic Youth leaned round to note his proximity to the
weir-piles, and beheld the sweet vision. Stiller and stiller grew
nature, as at the meeting of two electric clouds. Her posture was so
graceful, that though he was making straight for the weir, he dared not
dip a scull. Just then one enticing dewberry caught her eyes. He was