Page:Neuroomia.djvu/50

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NEUROOMIA: A NEW CONTINENT.

promised to do so. We now turned homeward, and as we were passing a secluded and romantic waterfall, I determined to give my fair companion what I considered would be an agreeable surprise, by kissing her, and made the attempt by putting my arm around her neck (when she happened to be looking in the direction of the falls), and was in the act of putting my mouth against hers, when she suddenly seized me and bumped me a few times against one of the trees close by, exclaiming, “Would you bite me, you wretch!” then carried me to the water-fall, and placed me beneath it till I was thoroughly saturated, after which she tossed me on the grass and walked indignantly away. I got up, shivering with the cold, feeling despondent and very much humiliated at the indignity to which I had been submitted. One thing, however, I felt thoroughly convinced of—that my love for ’Zenda was gone; that waterfall banished it.

While meditating what I should do, a passer-by noticed the predicament I was in, and, doubtless, coming to the conclusion that I had fallen into the pool below the cataract, invited me to his house. I accompanied him, and on the way learnt that he was a bachelor. I then related all that occurred at the waterfall, and he sympathised with me. It was