"You're out o' breath now."
"I want some water."
"Better sit down on this bench and rest a minute first," he said, attempting to lead her to a seat placed under an apple-tree; but she broke away from him, running swiftly toward the spring bubbling up from a thicket of laurel just beyond the dooryard fence.
"I ain't no baby, Eph'um Hurd!" she cried, gathering up her hair and winding it about her head again, the breeze fanning her flushed cheeks.
The moon was clear and full over Brandreth's Peak, and Ephraim looked up at it, then down on the girl, softened, etherealized by its magic beams.
"What makes you act so, Armindy?"
She broke a spray of laurel bloom and thrust it through the coil of her hair.
"I don't know what you're talkin' about, Eph'um; but I do know I'm waitin' for you to give me that gourd o' water."
He sighed, stooped, and filled the gourd to the brim, and gave it to her. She drank deeply, then threw the remainder out in a glittering shower, and dropped the gourd into the spring.
"Don't go to the house yet," he pleaded, as she turned away.