'"Permit me to give you a little one now," said I, assuming my sculls, and shot the boat out into mid-stream. I regarded her beauty with growing admiration and pleasure; but my Lancer experiences caused the thought to occur, could she be so innocent, so utterly guileless as she seemed?
'Some ferns were speedily selected, and uprooted by my knife, also some magnificent water-lilies from a pool under the trees; and, as she seemed thoroughly to enjoy herself upon the sunlit river, I pulled her to and fro, near the silver birches where I first met her, and she chatted away to me as if she had known me for months. That she was a lady in birth and breeding was indisputable; her accent was highly cultivated and her manners refined, and everything about the girl betokened gentle blood; but there was an artlessness combined with girlish abandon about her, that made me curiously and uncharitably suspicious, while deeply and suddenly interested in her. Thus I said, after a pause, while letting the boat drift with the current, and keeping the blades of my sculls just out of the water:
'"You do me great honour, and must have singular confidence in me, a stranger, that you trust yourself with me thus."
'"How we glide!" exclaimed the girl, with childish glee. "Oh, I could sail here for ever!"
'"What would mamma think, if she knew it?"
'"Being with you?"
'"Yes."
'"I scarcely know what she would think; but I know what she would do," was the reply.
'"Admonish you?"
'"Yes; and lock me up for days to come. But I can see, of course, that you are a gentleman."