"The window-seat for me!" cried Hildegarde, tossing her hat on the bed, and then leaning out of the window with both arms on the sill. "Rose, don't move! I forbid you to stir hand or foot. I will tell you while you are resting. There is a river,—a great, wide, beautiful river, just across the lawn."
"Well, dear," said quiet Rose, smiling, "you knew there was a river; your mother told us so."
"Yes, Goose, I did know it," cried Hildegarde; "but I had not seen it, and didn't know what it was like. It is all blue, with sparkles all over it, and little brown flurries where the wind strikes it. There are willows all along the edge—"
"To hang our harps on?" inquired Rose.
"Precisely!" replied Hildegarde. "And I think—Rose, I do see a boat-house! My dear, this is bliss! We will bathe every morning. You have never seen me dive, Rose."
"I have not," said Rose; "and it would be a pity to do it out of the window, dear, because in the first place I should only see your heels as you went out, and in the second—"
"Peace, paltry soul!" cried Hilda. "Here comes a scow, loaded with wood. The wood has been wet, and is all yellow and gleaming. 'Scow,'—what an absurd word! 'Barge' is prettier."
"It sounds so like Shalott," said Rose; "I must come and look too.
"'By the margin, willow-veiled,
Slide the heavy barges, trailed
By slow horses.'"
"Yes, it is just like it!" cried Hildegarde. "It is really a redeeming feature in you, Rose, that you are so apt in your quotations. Say the part about the river; that is exactly like what I am looking at."