Then a little sound of rustling leaves and crackling twigs reached her ear from behind her.

“There is a cow!” thought Elizabeth; —­ “now I can find the path by her.  But then! —­ cows don’t always —­”

Her eye had been sweeping round the woody skirts of her position, in search of her expected four-footed guide, when her thoughts were suddenly brought to a point by seeing a two-footed creature approaching, and one whom she instantly knew.

“It is Winthrop Landholm! —­ he is going to Mountain Spring to take an early coach, without his breakfast! —­ Well, you fool, what is it to you?” was the next thought.  “What does it signify whether he goes sooner or later, when it would be better for you not to see him at all, if your heart is going to start in that fashion at every time. —­”

Meanwhile she was making her way as well as she could, over rocks and briars, towards the new-comer; and did not look up till she answered his greeting —­

“Good morning! —­”

It was very cheerfully spoken.

“Good morning,” said Elizabeth, entangled in a cat-briar, from which with a desperate effort she broke free before any help could be given her.

“Those are naughty things.”

“No,” said Elizabeth, “they look beautiful now when they are growing tawny, as a contrast with the other creepers and the deep green cedars.  And they are a beautiful green at other times.”

“Make the best of them.  What were you looking at, a minute ago?”

“Looking for my way.  I had lost it.”

“You don’t know it very well, I guess.”

“Yes. —­ No, not very well, but I could follow it, and did, till coming home I thought I had time to look at the view; and then I couldn’t find it again.  I got turned about.”

“You were completely turned about when I saw you.”

“O I was not going that way —­ I knew better than that.  I was trying to discover some waymark.”

“How did you get out of the way?”

“I went to look at the view —­ from the water’s edge there.”

“Have you a mind to go back to the river edge again?  I have not seen that view in a long while. I shall not lose the path.”

“Then you cannot be intending to go by an early coach,” thought Elizabeth, as she picked her way back over rocks and moss to the water’s edge.  But Winthrop knew the ground, and brought her a few steps further to a broad standing-place of rock where the look-out was freer.  There was again before her the sparkling river, the frost-touched mountain, the sharp outlines, the varying shadows, that she had looked at a few minutes back.  Elizabeth looked at them again, thinking now not of them but of something different at every turn.

“The rock is too wet,” said Winthrop, “or I should propose your sitting down.”

“You certainly must have had your breakfast,” thought Elizabeth, “and not know that I haven’t had mine.”