"You have done so. I am an infant, and Nature is my mother. Oh, to be
restored to the full joy of life, the scent of wild flowers, the song of
birds, and this air--summer air--summer air!"

I know not why it was, but at that moment, looking at him and hearing him,
I rejoiced that Lilian was not at L----. "But I came out to bathe. Can
we not bathe in that stream?"

"No. You would derange the bandage round your hand; and for all bodily
ills, from the least to the gravest, there is nothing like leaving Nature
at rest the moment we have hit on the means which assist her own efforts
at cure."

"I obey, then; but I so love the water."

"You swim, of course?"

"Ask the fish if it swim. Ask the fish if it can escape me! I delight to
dive down--down; to plunge after the startled trout, as an otter does; and
then to get amongst those cool, fragrant reeds and bulrushes, or that
forest of emerald weed which one sometimes finds waving under clear
rivers. Man! man! could you live but an hour of my life you would know
how horrible a thing it is to die!"

"Yet the dying do not think so; they pass away calm and smiling, as you
will one day."

"I--I! die one day--die!" and he sank on the grass, and buried his face
amongst the herbage, sobbing aloud.