s
almost certainly conscious that vinegared lettuce-leaf in a sandwich was
a vast improvement.

"Do you come here often?" he said, at length.

"It is my favorite nook," she made answer.

"I confess that I feel horribly like an interloper," he remarked,
hesitatingly. "I feel as if I--as if I had no right to be here--as if I
were invading a sacred retreat--" and there he stopped; for he would
have liked to add, "the sacred retreat of a sylvan goddess or a nymph of
the stream," but that he somehow felt that fantastic imagery of that
kind would hardly be appropriate.

"You had more need of the shelter than I," said this extremely
matter-of-fact young person, "for you had no waterproof, and I had.
Come, if you have finished, shall we go up to the Top Pool?--I want you
to have a cast over that, for it is an experience; and, though the sun
is out, it won't much matter; there is always such a boiling and surging
in that caldron."

Old Robert, whose head was just visible above the bracken, was thereupon
called to pack up the remains of the simple feast, and then they set
forth again--skirting, but not troubling the Geinig Pool, for the sun
was too strong. A beautiful pool was this Geinig Pool--the water coming
tumbling down over the boulders in masses of chestnut hue and white,
then sailing away in a rapid sweep of purplish blue, and then breaking
over shallows (whose every ripple was a flashing diamond point) as it
went whirling into the rocky channel beyond. The sun lay hot on the
steep banks, where not a leaf of the birch-trees stirred now, and on the
lichened rocks, and on the long strand of lilac-gray pebbles; altogether
a beautiful pool this was, set deep in its cup among the hills, but for
their present purposes useless.

The Top Pool, which they presently reached, was altogether a different
sort of place; for here the waters plunged into a roaring caldron with a
din that stunned the ears; and now it was that Lionel discovered Miss
Honnor's intention--he was to have the amusement of throwing a fly over
this maelstrom from the side of the sheer bank, while the only foothold
afforded him was the stump of an out-projecting pine. Well, he was not
going to refuse--and ask a young lady to take his place. He dug his feet
into the soft herbage about the roots of the tree; old Robert handed him
the rod; he got out some line; and then began to try how he could get a
fly down into that raging vortex, while keeping clear of th