Yea, and time not long ago had they met here to talk as lovers, and
sat on that very bank in all the kindness of good days without a
blemish, and both he and she had loved the place well for its wealth
of blossoms and deep grass and goodly trees and clear running stream.
As he thought of all this, and how often there he had praised to
himself her beauty, which he scarce dared praise to her, he frowned
and slowly rose to his feet, and turned toward the chestnut-grove, as
though he would go thence that way; but or ever he stepped down from
the dyke he turned about again, and even therewith, like the very
image and ghost of his thought, lo! the Bride herself coming up from
out the brook and wending toward him, her wet naked feet gleaming in
the sun as they trod down the tender meadow-saffron and brushed past
the tufts of daffodils. He stood staring at her discomforted, for on
that day he had much to think of that seemed happy to him, and he
deemed that she would now question him, and his mind pondered divers
ways of answering her, and none seemed good to him. She drew near
and let her skirts fall over her feet, and came to him, her gown hem
dragging over the flowers: then she stood straight up before him and
greeted him, but reached not forth her hand to him nor touched him.
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