When she was upon his side of the streamlet, and before he released the slender fingers, he bent and kissed them; then, as there was no answering smile or blush, but only a quiet withdrawal of the hand and a remark about the crystal clearness of the brook, looked at her, with interrogation in his smile.
"What is that crested bird upon yonder bough," she asked,--"the one that gave the piercing cry ?" "A kingfisher," he answered, "and cousin to the halcyon of the ancients.
If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, you need have no fear of storms." A tree, leafless, but purplish pink with bloom, leaned from the bank above them.

He broke a branch and gave it to her.

"It is the Judas-tree," he told her.

"Iscariot hanged himself thereon." Around the trunk of a beech a lizard ran like a green flame, and they heard the distant barking of a fox.

Large white butterflies went past them, and a hummingbird whirred into the heart of a wild honeysuckle that had hasted to bloom.