And off these two young people went together in a highly electrical state—­to the infinite astonishment of Mrs. Frobisher, who was looking out of the attic window—­stepping out manfully and finding the whole world lit and splendid for their entertainment.  The things they discovered and told each other that afternoon down by the river!—­that spring was wonderful, young leaves beautiful, bud scales astonishing things, and clouds dazzling and stately!—­with an air of supreme originality!  And their naive astonishment to find one another in agreement upon these novel delights!  It seemed to them quite outside the play of accident that they should have met each other.

They went by the path that runs among the trees along the river bank, and she must needs repent and wish to take the lower one, the towing path, before they had gone three hundred yards.  So Lewisham had to find a place fit for her descent, where a friendly tree proffered its protruding roots as a convenient balustrade, and down she clambered with her hand in his.

Then a water-vole washing his whiskers gave occasion for a sudden touching of hands and the intimate confidence of whispers and silence together.  After which Lewisham essayed to gather her a marsh mallow at the peril, as it was judged, of his life, and gained it together with a bootful of water.  And at the gate by the black and shiny lock, where the path breaks away from the river, she overcame him by an unexpected feat, climbing gleefully to the top rail with the support of his hand, and leaping down, a figure of light and grace, to the ground.

They struck boldly across the meadows, which were gay with lady’s smock, and he walked, by special request, between her and three matronly cows—­feeling as Perseus might have done when he fended off the sea-monster.  And so by the mill, and up a steep path to Immering Common.  Across the meadows Lewisham had broached the subject of her occupation.  “And are you really going away from here to be an amanuensis?” he said, and started her upon the theme of herself, a theme she treated with a specialist’s enthusiasm.  They dealt with it by the comparative methods and neither noticed the light was out of the sky until the soft feet of the advancing shower had stolen right upon them.

“Look!” said he.  “Yonder!  A shed,” and they ran together.  She ran laughing, and yet swiftly and lightly.  He pulled her through the hedge by both hands, and released her skirt from an amorous bramble, and so they came into a little black shed in which a rusty harrow of gigantic proportions sheltered.  He noted how she still kept her breath after that run.

She sat down on the harrow and hesitated.  “I must take off my hat,” she said, “that rain will spot it,” and so he had a chance of admiring the sincerity of her curls—­not that he had ever doubted them.  She stooped over her hat, pocket-handkerchief in hand, daintily wiping off the silvery drops.  He stood up at the opening of the shed and looked at the country outside through the veil of the soft vehemence of the April shower.