"How do you do!"
That hard, smooth, gay little voice!
"You mustn't come here! And don't you peep! When are you going?"
He told her.
"To-morrow! Why, have you forgotten that I'm married to-morrow! Aren't you
coming? Upon my word! I've given you to the widow Babcock, and you are to
ride in the procession with her. She has promised me not to laugh once on
the way or even to allude to anything cheerful! Be persuaded! . . . Well,
I'm sorry. I'll have to give your place to Peter, I suppose. And I'll tell
the widow she can be natural and gay: Peter'll not mind! Good-bye! I can't
shake hands with you."
Behind the house, at the foot of the sloping hill, there was a spring such
as every pioneer sought to have near his home; and a little lower down, in
one corner of the yard, the water from this had broadened out into a small
pond. Dark-green sedgy cane grew thick around half the margin.
One March day some seasons before, Major Falconer had brought down with his
rifle from out the turquoise sky a young lone-wandering swan. In those early
days the rivers and ponds of the wilderness served as resting places and
feeding-grounds for these unnumbered birds in their long flights between the
Southern waters and the Northern lakes.
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