It was a gorgeous August evening. A week before she had told me that Saturday would be a holiday for her, and had, when pressed, admitted a design of spending it upon the river. Need it be confessed that Saturday saw me also in my boat, expectant? And when she came and feigned pretty astonishment at meeting me, and scepticism as to my doing any work throughout the week, need I say the explanation took time and seemed to me best delivered in a boat? At any rate, so it was; and somehow, the explanation took such a vast amount of time, that the sun was already plunging down the western slope of heaven when we stepped ashore almost on the very spot where first I had heard her voice.
As the first film of evening came creeping over earth, there fell a hush between us. A blackbird—the same, I verily believe—took the opportunity to welcome us. His note was no longer full and unstudied as in May. The summer was nearly over, and with it his voice was failing; but he did his best, and something in the hospitality of his song prompted me to break the silence.
"This is the very spot on which we met for the first time—do you remember?"
"Of course I remember," was the simple answer.
"You do?" I foolishly burned to hear the assurance again.
"Of course—it was such a lovely day."
"A blessed day," I answered, "the most blessed of my life."
There was a long pause here, and even the blackbird could hardly fill it up.
"Do you regret it?"
(Why does man on these occasions ask such a heap of questions?)