off my bait I was in no mood to cover my hook again, but
set the rod on the rocks and let the bright current waft my line as it
would, harmless now as the dusty alder leaves dimpling yonder ripple. So
I opened my book, idly attentive, reading The Poems of Pansard, while
dappled shadows of clustered maple leaves moved on the page, and droning
bees set old Pansard's lines to music.

"Like two sweet skylarks springing skyward, singing,
Piercing the empyrean of blinding light,
So shall our souls take flight, serenely winging,
Soaring on azure heights to God's delight;
While from below through sombre deeps come stealing
The floating notes of earthward church-bells pealing."

My thoughts wandered and the yellow page faded to a glimmer amid pale
spots of sunshine waning when some slow cloud drifted across the sun.
Again my eyes returned to the printed page, and again thought parted
from its moorings, a derelict upon the tide of memory. Far in the forest
I heard the white-throat's call with the endless, sad refrain,
"Weep-wee-p! Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy!" Though some vow that the little
bird sings plainly, "Sweet-sw-eet! Canada, Canada, Canada!"

Then for a while I closed my eyes until, slowly, that awakening sense
that somebody was looking at me came over me, and I raised my head.

Dorothy stood on the log-bridge above the dam, elbows on the rail,
gazing pensively at me.

"Well, of all idle men!" she said, steadying her voice perceptibly.
"Shall I come down?"

And without waiting for a reply she walked around to the south end of
the bridge and began to descend the ravine.

I offered assistance; she ignored it and picked her own way down the
cleft to the stream-side.

"It seems a thousand years since I have seen you," she said. "What have
you been doing all this while? What are you doing now? Reading? Oh!
fishing! And can you catch nothing, silly?... Give me that rod.... No,
I don't want it, after all; let the trout swim in peace.... How pale you
have grown, cousin!"

"You also, Dorothy," I said.

"Oh, I know that; there's a glass in my room, thank you.... I thought
I'd come down.... There is company at the house--some of Colonel
Gansevoort's officers, Third Regiment of the New York line, if you
please, and two impudent young ensigns of the Half-moon Regiment, all on
their way to Stanwix fort."

She seated herself on the deep moss and balanced her back against a
silver-birch tre