her conscience, for she seemed to grow embarrassed. At last she drew up
her chin to look at her companion under the nodding brim of her hat (and
the action gave her a charmingly freakish air), crying, "But where are
you going to? You are wet through. Let me thank you again; and, pray,
leave me, and go home and change instantly."

"Wet?" replied the magnetic muser, with a voice of tender interest; "not
more than one foot, I hope. I will leave you while you dry your
stockings in the sun."

At this she could not withhold a shy laugh.

"Not I, but you. You would try to get that silly book for me, and you
are dripping wet. Are you not very uncomfortable?"

In all sincerity he assured her that he was not.

"And you really do not feel that you are wet?"

He really did not: and it was a fact that he spoke truth.

She pursed her dewberry mouth in the most comical way, and her blue eyes
lightened laughter out of the half-closed lids.

"I cannot help it," she said, her mouth opening, and sounding harmonious
bells of laughter in his ears. "Pardon me, won't you?"

His face took the same soft smiling curves in admiration of her.

"Not to feel that you have been in the water, the very moment after!" she