was faint with pain.

'Oui, monsieur'--with a smile as firm and gentle as her touch.

She took off her hat, and, heedless of the ribbon upon it, filled it
with water again and again and drenched the swollen leg. It was so
great a relief to him that he hardly noticed that she stood ankle-deep
in the river to do it. She wore a little red tartan shawl upon her
shoulders, and she dipped this also in the river, binding it round and
round the ankle, and tying it tight with her own boot-lace.

'Thank you,' said he; 'you are really very good, Mam'selle Zilda.'

She stood beside him; she was radiantly happy, but she did not show it
much. She had him there very safe; it mattered less to her how to get
him away; yet in a minute she said--

'Monsieur had better move a little higher up; he is very uncomfortable.'

He knew that much better than she, but he had borne all the pain he
could just then. He nodded as if in dismissal of the idea. 'Presently.
But, in the meantime, Zilda, sit down and see what a beautiful place
this is; you have not looked at it.'

So she found a stone to sit on, and immediately her eyes were opened and
she saw the loveliness around her.

The river was not a very broad one, but ah! how blue it was, with a
glint of gold on every wave. The trees that stood upon either bank cast
a lacework of shadow upon the carpet of moss and violets beneath them.
The buds of the maples were red. On a tree near them a couple of male
canaries, bright gold in the spring season, were hopping and piping;
then startled, they flew off in a straight line over the river to the
other shore.

'See them,' said Gilby; 'they look like streaks of yellow light!'

'I see,' said Zilda, and she did see for the first time.

Now Gilby had a certain capacity for rejoicing in the beauties of
nature; it was overlaid with huge conceit in his own taste and
discernment and a love of forcing his observations on other people, but
the flaws in his character Zilda was not in a position to see. The good
in him awakened in her a higher virtue than she would otherwise have
known; she was unconscious of the rest, just as eyes which can see form
and not colour are unconscious of the bad blending of artificial hues.

Presently Zilda rose up. 'I will make monsieur more comfortable,' she
said, and she lifted him to a drier place upon the bank.

This was mortifying to little Gilby; his manner was quite huffy for some
minutes after.

Zilda had her ow