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 tree.

“They’re at the house, all these men,” she said; “and what do you think?  General Schuyler and his lady are to arrive this evening, and I’m to receive them, dressed in my best tucker!... and there may be others with them, though the General comes on a tour of inspection, being anxious lest disorder break out in this district if he is compelled to abandon Ticonderoga....  What do you think of that—­George?”

My name fell so sweetly, so confidently, from her lips that I looked up in warm pleasure and found her grave eyes searching mine.

“Make it easier for me,” she said, in a low voice.  “How can I talk to you if you do not answer me?”

“I—­I mean to answer, Dorothy,” I stammered; “I am very thankful for your kindness to me.”

“Do you think it is hard to be kind to you?” she murmured.  “What happiness if I only might be kind!” She hid her face in her hands and bowed her head.  “Pay no heed to me,” she said; “I—­I thought I could see you and control this rebel tongue of mine.  And here am I with heart insurgent beating the long roll and every nerve a-quiver with sedition!”