We were on that part of the river which was below the weir, and as we put out from shore the scene of my last night’s adventure was clearly visible.  There, spanning the river just above the weir, was the open-work timber bridge on which George was standing when my cry for help struck his ears.  There was the weir itself, a sheet of foaming, frothing water, that as it fell dashed itself in white-lipped passion against the rounded boulders that seemed striving in vain to turn it from its course.  And here, a little way from the bottom of the weir, was the pool of quiet water over which our little boat was now cleaving its way, and out of which the handsome young man now sitting opposite to me had plucked me, bruised and senseless, only a few short hours ago.  I shuddered and could feel myself turn pale as I looked.  George seemed to read my thoughts; he smiled, but said nothing.  Then bending all his strength to the oars, he sent the Water Lily spinning on her course.  All my skill and attention were needed for the proper management of the tiller, and for a little while all morbid musings were banished from my mind.

Scarcely a word passed between us during the next half-hour, but I was too happy to care much for conversation.  When we had gone a couple of miles or more, George pointed out a ruinous old house that stood on a dreary flat about a quarter of a mile from the river.  Many years ago, he told me, that house had been the scene of a terrible murder, and was said to have been haunted ever since.  Nobody would live in it; it was shunned as a place accursed, and was now falling slowly into decay and ruin.  I listened to the story with breathless interest, and the telling of it seemed to make us quite old friends.  After this there seemed no lack of subjects for conversation.  George shipped his oars, and the boat was allowed to float lazily down the stream.  He told about his schooldays, and I told about mine.  The height of his ambition, he said, was to go into the army, and become a soldier like his dear old uncle.  But Major Strickland wanted him to become a lawyer; and, owing everything to his uncle as he did, it was impossible for him not to accede to his wishes.  “Besides which,” added George, with a sigh, “a commission is an expensive thing to buy, and dear old uncle is anything but rich.”

When we first set out that morning I think that George, from the summit of his eighteen years, had been inclined to look down upon me as a little school miss, whom he might patronise in a kindly sort of way, but whose conversation could not possibly interest a man of his sense and knowledge of the world.  But whether it arose from that “old-fashioned” quality of which Major Strickland had made mention, which caused me to seem so much older than my years; or whether it arose from the genuine interest I showed in all he had to say; certain it is that long before we got back to Rose Cottage we were talking as equals in years