I don't mean only these river-guardians, but all these master-people I have read of." "Yes," said I, "how happy you are to have got out of the parsimony of oppression!" "Why do you sigh ?" she said, kindly and somewhat anxiously.

"You seem to think that it will not last ?" "It will last for you," quoth I.
"But why not for you ?" said she.

"Surely it is for all the world; and if your country is somewhat backward, it will come into line before long.
Or," she said quickly, "are you thinking that you must soon go back again?
I will make my proposal which I told you of at once, and so perhaps put an end to your anxiety.

I was going to propose that you should live with us where we are going.

I feel quite old friends with you, and should be sorry to lose you." Then she smiled on me, and said: "Do you know, I begin to suspect you of wanting to nurse a sham sorrow, like the ridiculous characters in some of those queer old novels that I have come across now and then." I really had almost begun to suspect it myself, but I refused to admit so much; so I sighed no more, but fell to giving my delightful companion what little pieces of history I knew about the river and its borderlands; and the time passed pleasantly enough; and between the two of us (she was a better sculler than I was, and seemed quite tireless) we kept up fairly well with Dick, hot as the afternoon was, and swallowed up the way at a great rate.