her rocking on the smooth water.

"Oh, thank you!" said Hildegarde. "I am so much obliged!"

"No need ter!" responded Jeremiah, politely. "Ye've handled a boat
before, have ye?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "I don't think I shall have any trouble." And as
she spoke, she stepped lightly in, and seating herself, took the oars
that he handed her. "And which is the prettiest way to row,
Jeremiah,--up river, or down?"

Jeremiah meditated. "Well," he said, "I don't hardly know as I can
rightly tell. Some thinks one way's pooty; some thinks t' other. Both of
'em 's sightly, to my mind."

"Then I shall try both," said Hildegarde, laughing. "Good-by, Jeremiah!
I will bring the boat back safe."

The oars dipped, and the boat shot off into midstream. Jeremiah looked
after it a few minutes, and then turned back toward the house. "_She_
knows what she's about!" he said to himself.

Near the bank the water had been a clear, shining brown, with the
pebbles showing white and yellow through it; but out here in the middle
of the river it was all a blaze and ripple and sparkle of blue and gold.
Hildegarde rested on her oars, and sat still for a few minutes, basking
in the light and warmth; but soon she found the glory too strong, and
pulled over to the other side, where high steep banks threw a shadow on
the water. Here the water was very deep, and the rocks showed as clear
and sharp beneath it as over it. Hildegarde rowed slowly along,
sometimes touching the warm stone with her hand. She looked down, and
saw little minnows and dace darting about, here and there, up and down.
"How pleasant to be a fish!" she thought. "There comes one up out of the
water. Plop! Did you get the fly, old fellow?

"'They wriggled their tails;
In the sun glanced their scales.'"

Then she tried to repeat "Saint Anthony's Sermon to the Fishes," of
which she was very fond.

"Sharp-snouted pikes,
Who keep fighting like tikes,
Now swam up harmonious
To hear Saint Antonius.
No sermon beside
Had the pikes so edified."

Presently something waved in the shadow,--something moving, among the
still reflections of the rocks. Hildegarde looked up. There, growing in
a cranny of the rock above her, was a cluster of purple bells, nodding
and swaying on slender thread-like stems. They were so beautiful that
she could only sit still and look at them at first, with eyes of
delight. But they were s