f, a sheet of foaming,
frothing water, that as it fell dashed itself in white-lipped passion
against the rounded boulders that seemed striving in vain to turn it
from its course. And here, a little way from the bottom of the weir, was
the pool of quiet water over which our little boat was now cleaving its
way, and out of which the handsome young man now sitting opposite to me
had plucked me, bruised and senseless, only a few short hours ago. I
shuddered and could feel myself turn pale as I looked. George seemed to
read my thoughts; he smiled, but said nothing. Then bending all his
strength to the oars, he sent the _Water Lily_ spinning on her course.
All my skill and attention were needed for the proper management of the
tiller, and for a little while all morbid musings were banished from my
mind.

Scarcely a word passed between us during the next half-hour, but I was
too happy to care much for conversation. When we had gone a couple of
miles or more, George pointed out a ruinous old house that stood on a
dreary flat about a quarter of a mile from the river. Many years ago, he
told me, that house had been the scene of a terrible murder, and was
said to have been haunted ever since. Nobody would live in it; it was
shunned as a place accursed, and was now falling slowly into decay and
ruin. I listened to the story with breathless interest, and the telling
of it seemed to make us quite old friends. After this there seemed no
lack of subjects for conversation. George shipped his oars, and the boat
was allowed to float lazily down the stream. He told about his
schooldays, and I told about mine. The height of his ambition, he said,
was to go into the army, and become a soldier like his dear old uncle.
But Major Strickland wanted him to become a lawyer; and, owing
everything to his uncle as he did, it was impossible for him not to
accede to his wishes. "Besides which," added George, with a sigh, "a
commission is an expensive thing to buy, and dear old uncle is anything
but rich."

When we first set out that morning I think that George, from the summit
of his eighteen years, had been inclined to look down upon me as a
little school miss, whom he might patronise in a kindly sort of way, but
whose conversation could not possibly interest a man of his sense and
knowledge of the world. But whether it arose from that "old-fashioned"
quality of which Major Strickland had made mention, which caused me to
seem so much older than my y