Between willow-fringed banks of softest green, and under the bluest of summer skies, the little river took its lazy Southern way.  Tall blue lobelias and golden flags played hide-and-seek in the reflections of the gentle stream, and an occasional spray of goldenrod, advance-guard of the autumn, stood apart, a silent warning to the summer idlers.

Somewhere overhead a vireo, dainty poet of bird-land, proclaimed his love to the wide world; while below, another child of nature, no less impassioned, no less aching to give vent to the joy that was bursting his being, sat silent in a canoe that swung softly with the pulsing of the stream.

For Sandy had followed the highroad that led straight into the Land of Enchantment.  No more wanderings by intricate byways up golden hills to golden castles; the Love Road had led him at last to the real world of the King Arthur days—­the world that was lighted by a strange and wondrous light of romance, wherein he dwelt, a knight, waiting and longing to prove his valor in the eyes of his lady fair.

Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain.  Oh for dungeons and towers and forbidding battlements!  Any danger was welcome from which he might rescue her.  Fire, flood, or bandits—­he would brave them all.  Meanwhile he sat in the prow of the boat, his hands clasped about his knees, utterly powerless to break the spell of awkward silence that seemed to possess him.

[Illustration:  “Burning deeds of prowess rioted in his brain”]

They had paddled in under the willows to avoid the heat of the sun, and had tied their boat to an overhanging bough.

Ruth, with her sleeve turned back to the elbow, was trailing her hand in the cool water and watching the little circles that followed her fingers.  Her hat was off, and her hair, where the sun fell on it through the leaves, was almost the color of her eyes.

But what was the real color of her eyes?  Sandy brought all his intellect to bear upon the momentous question.  Sometimes, he thought, they were as dark as the velvet shadows in the heart of the stream; sometimes they were lighted by tiny flames of gold that sparkled in the brown depths as the sunshine sparkled in the shadows.  They were deep as his love and bright as his hope.

Suddenly he realized that she had asked him a question.

“It’s never a word I’ve heard of what ye are saying!” he exclaimed contritely.  “My mind was on your eyes, and the brown of them.  Do they keep changing color like that all the time?”

Ruth, thus earnestly appealed to, blushed furiously.

“I was talking about the river,” she said quickly.  “It’s jolly under here, isn’t it?  So cool and green!  I was awfully cross when I came.”

“You cross?”

She nodded her head.  “And ungrateful, and perverse, and queer, and totally unlike my father’s family.”  She counted off her shortcomings on her fingers, and raised her brows in comical imitation of her aunt.