this common-sense
view of such a situation. It was not strange in Hetty, however. It
was simply the carrying out of the impulses and motives which had
characterized her whole life.

About this time, Hetty began with Raby to practise rowing on Welbury
Lake. This lake was a beautiful sheet of water, lying between Welbury
and Springton. It was some two miles long, and one wide; and held two or
three little wooded islands, which were much resorted to in the summer.
On two sides of the lake, rose high, rocky precipices; no landing was
possible there: the other two sides were thick wooded forests of pines
and hemlocks. Nothing could exceed in loveliness the situation of this
lake. Two roads led to it: one from the Springton, the other from the
Welbury side; both running through the hemlock forests. In the winter
these were used for carrying out ice, which was cut in great quantities
on the lake. In the summer, no one crossed these roads, except parties
of pleasure-seekers who went to sail or row on the lake. In a shanty on
the Welbury side, lived an old man, who made a little money every summer
by renting a few rather leaky boats, and taking charge of such boats as
were kept moored at his beach by their owners.

Hetty had promised Raby that when he was ten years old he should have a
fine boat, and learn to row. The time had come now for her to keep this
promise. Every Saturday afternoon during the summer following Rachel's
recovery, Hetty and Raby spent on the lake. Hetty was a strong and
skilful oars-woman. Little Raby soon learned to manage the boat as well
as she did. The lake was considered unsafe for sail-boats, on account of
flaws of wind which often, without any warning, beat down from the hills
on the west side; but rowing there was one of the chief pleasures of the
young people of Welbury and Springton. In Hetty's present frame of mind,
this lonely lake had a strange fascination for her. In her youth she had
never loved it: she had always been eager to land on one of the islands,
and spend hours in the depths of the fragrant woods, rather than on the
dark and silent water. But now she never wearied of rowing round and
round its water margin, and looking down into its unsounded depths.
It was believed that Welbury Lake was unfathomable; but this notion
probably had its foundation in the limited facilities in that region for
sounding deep waters.

One day Hetty rowed across the lake to the point where the Springton