Startled, perhaps, by the intruding step, for it was no light one, a squirrel leaped from the bough to the grass, and, leaping, woke the sleeper.  He himself, now unperceived, saw a vision in return,—­this woman, young and rare, this queenly, perfect thing, floating on and vanishing among the trees.  Whence had she come, and who was she?  And hereupon he remembered the old Bawn and its occupants.  Had she seen him?  Unlikely; but yet, unimportant as it was, it remained an interesting and open question in his mind.  Bringing down the hair so ruffled in the idle breeze, he crowded his hat over it with a determined air, half ran, half tumbled, down the bank, sprang into his boat, and, shaking out a sail, went flirting over the lake as fast as the wind could carry him.  Leaving a long, straight, shining wake behind him, Mr. Roger Raleigh skimmed along the skin of ripples, and, in order to avoid a sound of shrill voices, skirted the angle of an island, and found himself deceived by the echo and in the midst of them.

Mrs. McLean, Miss Helen Heath, and Miss Mary Purcell, who had embarked with a single pair of oars, were now shipwrecked on the waters wide, as Helen said; for one of their means of progress, she declared, had been snatched by the roaring waves and was floating in the trough of the sea, just beyond their reach.  None of the number being acquainted with the process of sculling, they considered it imperative to secure the truant tool, unless they wished to perish floating about unseen; and having weighed the expediency of rigging Helen into a jury-mast, they were now using their endeavors to regain the oar,—­Mary Purcell whirling them about like a maelstroem with the remaining one, and Mrs. McLean with her two hands grasping Helen’s garments, while the latter half stood in the boat and half lay recumbent on the lake, tipping, slipping, dipping, till her head resembled a mermaid’s; while they all three filled the air with more exclaim, shrieking, and laughter than could have been effected by a large-lunged mob.

“Bedlam let loose,” thought the intruder, “or all the Naiads up for a frolic?” And as he shot by, a hush fell upon the noisy group,—­Helen pausing and erecting herself from her ablutions, Mary’s frantic efforts sending them as a broadside upon the Arrow and nearly capsizing it, and Mrs. McLean, ceasing merriment, staring from both her eyes, and saying nothing.  Mr. Raleigh seized the oar in passing, and directly afterward had placed it in Helen’s hands.  Receiving it with a profusion of thanks, she seated herself and bent to its use.  But, looking back in a few seconds, Mr. Raleigh observed that the exhausted rowers had made scarcely a yard’s distance.  He had no inclination for gallant devoir, his eyes and thoughts were full of his late vision in the woods, he wished to reach home and dream; but in a moment he was again beside them, had taken their painter with a bow and an easy sentence, but neither with empressement nor heightened color, and, changing his course, was lending them a portion of the Arrow’s swiftness in flight towards the Bawn.  It seemed as if the old place sent its ghosts out to him this afternoon.  Bringing them close upon the flat landing-rock, and hooking the painter therein, he sheered off, lifting his hat, and was gone.