And she was in her room before a word could be said.
"But Miss Haye," said Mrs. Landholm, as she came out with bonnet and shawl, "you won't go without your breakfast? It will be ready long before you can get back."
"Breakfast can wait."
"But you will want it."
"No — I don't care if I do."
And down she ran to the rocks, followed by Asahel.
There was a singular still sweetness in the early summer morning on the water. The air seemed to have twice the life it had the evening before; the light was fair, beyond words to tell. Here its fresh gilding was upon a mountain slope; there it stretched in a long misty beam athwart a deep valley; it touched the broken points of rock, and glanced on the river, and seemed to make merry with the birds; fresh, gladsome and pure as their song. No token of man's busy life yet in the air; the birds had it. Only over Shahweetah valley, and from Mr. Underhill's chimney on the other side of the river, and from Sam Doolittle's in the bay, thin wreaths of blue smoke slowly went up, telling that there, — and there, — and there, — man was getting ready for his day's work, and woman had begun hers! Only those, and the soft stroke of Winthrop's oars; but to Elizabeth that seemed only play. She sat perfectly still, her eye varying from their regular dip to the sunny rocks of the headland, to the coloured mountain heads, the trees, the river, the curling smoke, — and back again to the oars; with a grave, intent, deep notice-taking. The water was neither for nor against them now; and with its light load and its good oars the boat flew. Diver's Rock was passed; then they got out of the sunshine into the cool shadow of the eastern shore below the bay, and fell down the river fast to the mill. Not a word was spoken by anybody till they got there.
Nor then by Elizabeth, till she saw Mr. Cowslip and Winthrop bringing her trunks and boxes to the boat-side.
"Hollo! you've got live cargo too, Governor," said the old miller. "That aint fair, — Mornin'! — The box is safe."
"Are you going to put those things in here?" said Elizabeth.