"Will you come over here if I come to fetch you? Then we can go up in the woods where no one can see. Come over on the raft."
"Yes, I could do that!"
He took up his pole and set the raft loose—a couple of tree trunks, no more, fastened together with withies—and rowed hurriedly across to the opposite bank.
"Like a dear sister she comes," he thought to himself, as he helped her on to the raft. The girl held his hands and looked deep into his eyes, but without speaking.
"Sit there on the crosspiece—you can't stand up when it begins to move."
She sat down obediently, and he rowed across.
"I never thought you could be such a friend," he said, as they stepped ashore.
"Friend?" said the girl, with a tender, grateful glance—grateful that he had found the very word for the feeling that had brought her thither, and which had cost her so much already.
* * * * *
The sun was setting. A youth and a girl walked down from the woods towards the river bank, talking together.