el in the rocky
bed of the winter current. Knight scrambled through the bushes which at
this point nearly covered the brook from sight, and leapt down upon the
dry portion of the river bottom.

'Elfride, I never saw such a sight!' he exclaimed. 'The hazels overhang
the river's course in a perfect arch, and the floor is beautifully
paved. The place reminds one of the passages of a cloister. Let me help
you down.'

He assisted her through the marginal underwood and down to the stones.
They walked on together to a tiny cascade about a foot wide and high,
and sat down beside it on the flags that for nine months in the year
were submerged beneath a gushing bourne. From their feet trickled the
attenuated thread of water which alone remained to tell the intent and
reason of this leaf-covered aisle, and journeyed on in a zigzag line
till lost in the shade.

Knight, leaning on his elbow, after contemplating all this, looked
critically at Elfride.

'Does not such a luxuriant head of hair exhaust itself and get thin as
the years go on from eighteen to eight-and-twenty?' he asked at length.

'Oh no!' she said quickly, with a visible disinclination to harbour such
a thought, which came upon her with an unpleasantness whose force it
would be difficult for men to understand. She added afterwards, with
smouldering uneasiness, 'Do you really think that a great abundance of
hair is more likely to get thin than a moderate quantity?'

'Yes, I really do. I believe--am almost sure, in fact--that if
statistics could be obtained on the subject, you would find the persons
with thin hair were those who had a superabundance originally, and that
those who start with a moderate quantity retain it without much loss.'

Elfride's troubles sat upon her face as well as in her heart. Perhaps
to a woman it is almost as dreadful to think of losing her beauty as of
losing her reputation. At any rate, she looked quite as gloomy as she
had looked at any minute that day.

'You shouldn't be so troubled about a mere personal adornment,' said
Knight, with some of the severity of tone that had been customary before
she had beguiled him into softness.

'I think it is a woman's duty to be as beautiful as she can. If I were a
scholar, I would give you chapter and verse for it from one of your own
Latin authors. I know there is such a passage, for papa has alluded to
it.'

"'Munditiae, et ornatus, et cultus," &c.--is that it? A passage in Livy
which is no