Suddenly she stopped in her walk and uttered a little cry. "It is wet here," she cried with vexation: "we must turn back, Floyd."
"I said I would take care of you," I exclaimed quickly, and putting my arms about her I raised her and carried her safely over the spot where a hundred springs trickled up to the surface and made a morass of the luxuriant grass. I did not set her down at once. For weeks now, sleeping and waking, I had been haunted by a fierce longing to hold her to my heart as I held her now, and it was not so easy to put by so great a joy. When at last I reached the stile I released her, and she sat down on the stone and looked at me with a half smile.
"If you call that taking care of me, Floyd—" said she, shaking her head.
"You are not angry with me, Georgina?"
"How could I be angry with you?" she said, putting out her hand to me and speaking so kindly that I dared to press her little rosy palm to my lips. "But how strong you are, Floyd! You carried me like a feather's weight, and yet I am tall and very heavy. You know how to take care of me, indeed."
"If I might always take care of you!" I said, my heart beating and the blood rushing to my face. "I can carry you home if you will. Don't you remember about the Laird of Bothwick declaring that no man should marry his daughter save the one who should carry her three miles up the mountain-side? If I could have such a chance with you!"
"But about the daughter of the old laird: did she find a lover so strong as to carry her to the mountain-top?"
"Yes: one of her suitors took her in his arms and strode along, crying, 'Love gives me strength—love gives me speed.' However, he was not happy after all, poor fellow! When he reached the goal he died. How could he have died then?"
"What did the young lady do?" inquired Georgy, laughing. "I suppose another lover rode by her side as she walked home, and that she married him for his pains. That is the way the brave men of the world are rewarded, Floyd. Don't be too generous, nor too strong, nor too self-forgetful. You will gain nothing by it."
"Do you mean that I shall not gain you, Georgy?"