'
'Oh' cried she, with a toss of her head; I wet feet never hurt young
people.'
There was matter for an admonitory lecture in this. Let me confess I was
about to give it, when she added: But Mr. Pollingray, I am really afraid
that your feet are wet! You had to step into the water when you righted
the boat:
My reply was to jump down by her side with as much agility as I could
combine with a proper discretion. The amateur craft rocked threateningly,
and I found myself grasped by and grasping the pretty damsel, until by
great good luck we were steadied and preserved from the same misfortune
which had befallen her parents. She laughed and blushed, and we tottered
asunder.
'Would you have talked metaphysics to me in the water, Mr. Pollingray?'
Alice was here guilty of one of those naughty sort of innocent speeches
smacking of Eve most strongly; though, of course, of Eve in her best
days.
I took the rudder lines to steer against the sculling of her single
scull, and was Adam enough to respond to temptation: 'I should perhaps
have been grateful to your charitable construction of it as being
metaphysics.
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