And healing sympathy, that stole away
Their sharpness, ere she was aware."
One day they had gone up to Cold Spring in the "Phylidy," as the captain called his launch, with the intention of going on up the North Branch. Mrs. Pennybacker was with them this time. They were out for an all day's jaunt and were to have dinner in the woods.
They secured a large boat at Cold Spring, piled their hampers and hammocks in and started off in high spirits, Mrs. Pennybacker's trenchant comments on all they encountered making fun for the company.
Margaret from her post in the bow looked back upon the track they made as they turned into the North Branch. The place stood out ever afterward in her memory,—the lily pads at the river's fork, and the towering elms on the south shore; in the distance the sloping grounds of the hotel they had left behind, with the drooping willow over the spring; just before her as she looked back the railroad bridge across the South Branch and two lovers in a row boat gliding under it into the shadows beyond. It was such a tranquil scene. It took her out into the clear sunlight.
It stood out in John Harcourt's memory, too, for it was just here that she had said only two days before when he had taken her alone for a row.
"Some day you will find a sweet woodland flower that has never been trampled on. Plant it in your garden. And then tend it. Oh, tend it carefully! It will not need much to make it grow—only the sunshine and a little care, a little tender handling, a little shielding from the blast or from the heat. No, it will not take much. Only—let it be constant! It is neglect that kills a plant—the doing for it to-day and forgetting it to-morrow." It was as near as she had ever come to a confidence about her own married life.
One "winds about and in and out" on the North Branch. There are many, many turns, particularly as one gets farther up. They were rounding one of these points when Margaret, still looking back over their tortuous track, saw a boat in the distance. It was only for a moment and then another bend took it from view. In it were two men. She could not help feeling disturbed though she said nothing. She would not be constantly obtruding her specter upon others. But she found herself watching for the boat at every turn. Sometimes she could see only a white hat against the green of the bank.
They rowed on and on. They were going to the head of navigation, Harcourt said, and there was all day to do it in. All the pay he claimed was his dinner, but by the time he got this "floating scow of old Virginny" to a landing place he rather thought he should need it. And he rested on his oars.
"Mr. Harcourt," said Margaret in a low tone, "have you noticed those men—in the boat, I mean. They've stopped now. They always slow up when you do."