"You are going out, Miss Changarnier?" Mr. St. George had remarked at
the door; and, on being answered, he had added in a soliloquy, as if not
deigning a second address for a second rebuff,--"It will be quite
impossible to go far, for the freshet has swollen the brooks into
rivers."
Eloise, however, took no notice of the information, and went on her way,
strolled farther than she had intended, and forded a brook because Mr.
St. George had said she could not. Then she sat down under a branching
tree that dropped its leaves about her and into the brook, and began to
read the "Romaunt of the Rose": at least, I fancy that was the book she
had. While she remained, the brook swirling ever louder between the
pauses, the sunset ran red in the sky and warned her to hasten home. But
she disregarded the warning till purple shadows fell softly on the page,
and stars and moon stole out to peer above her shoulder and see what it
was that so entranced the maiden. Rising hurriedly, she moved away; and
only when she had crossed two or three of the stepping-stones did she
perceive, on looking down, that, while she had been reading, the water
had risen above the next ones with a depth that the failing light
forbade her to see. Standing there, and bending dizzily forward to guess
the strength of the dark stream now so loudly and rapidly rushing by,
there came a noise like a bursting water-spout; suddenly her waist was
seized, and she was swept back to the shore.
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