"But now you will never want to come here again, I fear."
"Oh, but I shall!" cried Hilda. "I am not so silly as that, truly I am not. I shall always think of this as the loveliest place I know; and—"
"Well, and—what?" asked Roger.
"Oh, nothing! Only—well, it is your own place," said Hilda frankly, "and I shall always think of you here, in the dear Cheemaun, with the enchanted princesses—I mean the sandpipers—and the fish-hawk, and all the rest of it."
"If it is mine, I may do what I like with it, and I give it to you. Will you have it?"
"Oh, we will share it together!" cried Hilda eagerly; and then bethought herself, and blushed in her usual ridiculous way, and wondered if the back of her neck were blushing too. It was, and Roger saw the crimson mounting to the pretty ears and losing itself in the fair hair; and he wondered—and wondered again, and then remembered that people sometimes blushed when they were angry. He was a very, very stupid Roger, in some ways; but in a moment Hilda began to talk as cheerfully as possible, and to ask about all the birds they had seen, so Roger was relieved, and they paddled home to breakfast in a very pleasant way.
CHAPTER XVI.
GOOD-BY.
The golden morning passed all too quickly; the mornings always did, out at camp. There was the merry dish-washing, the sweeping and setting to rights, and then all separated to their different tasks,—fishing, boat-mending, cooking, photographing or surveying, till the hour of noon brought them together again for the swimming. Roger departed on his wheel, having business in the village.
The three girls sat down before a huge basket of mending, "Three against Thebes," as Bell said, and plied their needles diligently. Hildegarde felt as if she were sewing in a dream; her fingers flew, for she could almost sew in her sleep, but her thoughts were away in the Lonely Cove, with the wild creatures and the stillness. She would like to go back there, she thought, with—well, she would like to go back there, and stay, long hours, till the spirit of the place had sunk deep into her heart. She had felt it, the touch of its hand in passing, the brushing of its robe, but that only showed her how little she knew, how infinitely more there was to learn, to see, to love. She shut her eyes and tried to call back the scene, all grey and silver, glimmering in the faint early light.