“But surely the great lords were not what you represent.  They were gentle born, gentle bred.  They could not be robbers; they lived from great estates.”

“They were the ‘Knights of St. Nicholas,’ which, in the slang of the middle ages, meant what they call in the West road agents; indeed, plain highwaymen they were called in England in Bacon’s day.”

Vincent bent over discomfited, and held the little shallop until Olympia was seated, and then pushed off into the murky stream.

“Do you see those streamers of loveliness waving welcome to you, fair damsel—­Nature knows its kind?”

“That’s one word for me and one for yourself,” she cried, seizing the dainty pink sprays that now trailed over her head and shoulders as the boat glided along the fringe of hushes supporting the clinging vines.

“Oh, no, Olympia; I can’t speak even one word for myself.  I have been trembling to do it this six weeks, but your eye had none of the invitation these starry blossoms offer us.  I am going to say now, Olympia, what I have to say—­for after to-day there will be no chance; what has been on my mind you have long known.  You know that I love you; how much I love you, how impossible it is to think of life without you, I dare not venture to say to you, for you distrust our Southern exaggeration.  But I do love you; ah, my God! all the world else—­my mother, my sister, my duty seem nothing compared to the one passionate hope in my breast.  Do you believe me, Olympia—­do you doubt me?”

“Far from it, Vincent—­dear Vincent—­no—­no—­sit where you are and listen to me—­” She was deeply moved, and the lover in his heart cursed the luckless veils of blossom that she apparently, without design, drew before her face.  “I do believe all you say; I knew it before you said it.  But you remember we went over this very same ground before.  Since then, it is true, you have been the means of saving us much misery; how much I hardly dare think of when I look back to that dreadful day, when mamma lay in the fever of coming disease and the hopelessness of despair.  All I can say, dear, dear Vincent, is what I said before.  Wait until thine and mine are no longer at war.  Wait until one flag covers us—­”

“But that can never be!”

“Wait!  I have faith that it will be!”

“If one flag should cover us—­my flag—­would you—­would you—?”

“Ah, Vincent! don’t ask me; don’t force me to say something thing that will make you unhappy, since I don’t know my own mind well enough yet to answer as you wish me to answer—­”

“But you can tell me now whether you love me, or, at least, whether there is any one you love more?”

“I don’t think I love you.  I know, however, that I think no more of any one else than I think of you; pray, let that suffice.”

“But how cruel that is, Olympia!  It is as much, as to say that you won’t wait and see whether you may meet some one that you can be surer of than you are of me?”