are branches the distance lent a softness not their own.
The banks of the Promenade were still green, but the masses of vine that
trailed in the green ripples were all of a crimson or reddish brown, and
the shrubs showed here and there an echo of the same color.

It was beautiful and wonderful to see, and they stood still and feasted
their eyes for some long minutes.

"Oh, Isar," Rosina cried softly, holding her hand out towards the
singing waters below, "when shall I see you again?"

"You will return some day," her companion said hopefully.

"Who can tell?"

"But always you must come over some bridge to return to-night."

She felt that such levity jarred upon her mood, and refused to return
his smile. She did not like him to feel like smiling too often these
days.

"Do not be of a bad humor," he entreated. "I am this afternoon of such a
good one; and how can you know that you will not return? A woman can
never be decided, so you may very well see the Isar soon again. _Vous
comprenez?_"

"Is it being bad-humored to be sad?" she asked; "and why can't I be
decided if I want to be?"

"Because," he said, wisely, "you are a woman; and a woman is very
foolish to ever be decided, for she always changes her mind; and then
all her decided seems to have been quite useless."

Rosina felt that this sentence called for study before reply, and so
walked on without speaking.

"Is that not so?" he asked, as they went down by the little stone stair.

"I never change."

"Oh, now you know well that you do not speak the truth,--you are so very
changeable. This afternoon, _par exemple_, when I first come to ask you
to go out, you say you cannot of any possibility make it, and then, very
suddenly, we go."

"But I recollected that I might wear this skirt."

"And there was that lady, also," he said thoughtfully.

"Yes, she was there, too."

"But always you did change."

"I don't call it being changeable when one has a good reason for so
doing."

He stopped short; and she, after going a few steps further, discovered
herself to be unaccompanied and stopped also.

"What is the matter?"

"Suddenly, I think."

"Can't you walk and think at the same time?"

He smiled, and came up with her again.

"If I make you a good reason--" he began, and then hesitated and was
silent.

They followed the muddy path almost to the Luitpoldbrucke before he
continued his phrase.

"If one can change for a good reason, and if I make y