It was one of those days so long in the experience, but so charming to remember.  Eve, with her wilful, fearless ways, her quips and joyousness, had been the life and the delight of it; now, chilled and weary, she hailed the sight of the lamps that seemed to be hung out along the shore to light them home:  for their boatmen were inexperienced, and, though wind failed them, had not dared before to lift the oars, ignorant as they were of their precise whereabouts, and even now made no progress like that of the unseen voice still hovering around them.  There had been a season of low tides, and when, to save the weary work of rowing a heavy sail-boat farther, it was decided to make the shore, they were hindered by a length of shallow water and weedy flat, through which the ladies of the party must consent to be carried.  A late weird moon was rising down behind the light-houses, all red and angry in the mist still brooding over the horizon, the boat lay in the deep shade it cast, the river beyond was breaking into light, reach after reach, like a blossom into bloom.  Two of her friends had already been taken to the bank; Eve stood in the bow, awaiting her bearers, and watching the distant bays of the stream, each one of which seemed just on the verge of opening into an impossible midnight glory.  She heard the plash of feet in the water, but did not heed it other than to fold her cloak more conveniently about her, her eye caught the contour of a vague approaching form, and then shadowy arms were reaching up to encircle her.  She was bending, and just yielding herself to the clasp, when the hearty voice of her bearers sounded at hand, bidding her be of good cheer; the adumbration shrank back into the gloom, and, before she recovered from her start, firm arms had borne her to firm land.

“Well, Eve,” said one of her awaiting friends, “is the earth going up and down with you?  As for me, my head swims like a buoy.  I feel as if I had waltzed all day.”

“Nympholeptic, then,” said Eve,—­

          “’When you do dance, I wish you
    A wave of the sea, that you might ever do
    Nothing but that.’”

“I thought they threw out the anchor down there,” said the other.  “Are they tying her up for the night, too?  How long it takes them!  Oh, for an inquisition and a rack,—­I am so cramped!  Eve, here, is extinguished.  What a day it has been!”

    “’Oh, sweet the flight, at dead of night,
    When up the immeasurable height
    The thin cloud wanders with the breeze
    That shakes the splendor from the star,
    That stoops and crisps the darkling seas,
    And drives the daring keel afar
    Where loneliness and silence are! 
    To cleave the crested wave, and mark
    Drowned in its depth the shattered spark,
    On airy swells to soar, and rise
    Where nothing but the foam-bell flies,
    O’er freest tracts of wild delight,
    Oh, sweet the flight at dead of night!’”