With a low ejaculation of terror, Mercy closed her eyes.

She would not look on Stephen in such peril.

She did not move nor open her eyes, until he stood by her side, exclaiming, "Why, Mercy! my darling, do not look so! There was no danger," and he laid the little plant in her hand.

She looked at it in silence for a moment, and then said,-- "Oh, Stephen! to risk your life for such a thing as that! The sight of it will always make me shudder." "Then I will throw it away," said Stephen, endeavoring to take it from her hand; but she held it only the tighter, and whispered,-- "No! oh, what a moment! what a moment! I shall keep this flower as long as I live!" And she did,--kept it wrapped in a paper, on which were written the following lines:-- A MOMENT.
Lightly as an insect floating In the sunny summer air, Waved one tiny snow-white blossom, From a hidden crevice growing, Dainty, fragile-leaved, and fair, Where great rocks piled up like mountains, Well-nigh to the shining heavens, Rose precipitous and bare, With a pent-up river rushing, Foaming as at boiling heat Wildly, madly, at their feet.
Hardly with a ripple stirring The sweet silence by its tone, Fell a woman's whisper lightly,-- "Oh, the dainty, dauntless blossom! What deep secret of its own Keeps it joyous and light-hearted, O'er this dreadful chasm swinging, Unsupported and alone, With no help or cheer from kindred?
Oh, the dainty, dauntless thing, Bravest creature of the spring!" Then the woman saw her lover, For one instant saw his face, Down the precipice slow sinking, Looking up at her, and sending Through the shimmering, sunny space Look of love and subtle triumph, As he plucked the tiny blossom In its airy, dizzy place,-- Plucked it, smiling, as if danger Were not danger to the hand Of true lover in love's land.
In her hands her face she buried, At her heart the blood grew chill; In that one brief moment crowded The whole anguish of a lifetime, Made her every pulse stand still.
Like one dead she sat and waited, Listening to the stirless silence, Ages in a second, till, Lightly leaping, came her lover, And, still smiling, laid the sweet Snow-white blossom at her feet.
"O my love! my love!" she shuddered, "Bloomed that flower by Death's own spell?
Was thy life so little moment, Life and love for that one blossom Wert thou ready thus to sell?
O my precious love! for ever I shall keep this faded token Of the hour which came to tell, In such voice I scarce dared listen, How thy life to me had grown So much dearer than my own!" On their way home from the picnic late in the afternoon, they came at the base of the mountain to a beautiful spot where two little streams met.

The two streams were in sight for a long distance: one shining in a green meadow; the other leaping and foaming down a gorge in the mountain-side.