whisper of a brook and the murmur of some pines he had passed; and then he grimaced in derision of his own poetical similes, but nevertheless he told her of them.

"That so?" she said, turning the wide eyes in wonder on him. "I reckon not, though; you ain't used to hearing it, that's all. No, I've no voice. I never could sing; but I like it-I like it better than-than anything in the world."

"In the world," he repeated, dubiously. "I have not yet made up my mind whether you are of the world or not.” She smiled at that. "It ain't much of the world, may be, our mountain, an' one of your towns mayn't be much of it; but they all help to make it up, I reckon—one as much as the other."

"I have

"But I am not of the towns now," he objected. given them up. I am going to claim a partnership in your mountain now, and may be try and steal its music, too. Will you bar me out? I think Daphne was selfish, if I remember; she wanted all the laurel herself."

"There ain't any can bar you out, I reckon," she answered, looking at him in a puzzled way—evidently the name of Daphne was an unsolved problem to her; "and as to the music, sir, you haven't need for any music of the mountain; you've got your own-an'-an' it helps folks more."

Her utter seriousness stilled the quizzical manner he had called to his aid with which to ridicule himself out of a seriousness that crept to him as he looked at her or listened to her. He had the most ridiculous impulse to ask if it was any sorrow he could assuage that left so pathetic a wistfulness in the wide eyes. They opened a trifle wider, and then dropped shyly, as he raised his hat, and forgetting, evidently, to replace it, rode on in the dusk bareheaded.

"I am not worth so great a compliment as that," he

said, after a long silence; "may be you will know that some day, little girl-some day when you know the world." But the smile he turned to her was not a gay one. "But what is it you mean when you say my music helps people more than the mountains?

She looked at him, but dropped her head as well as her eyes this time, and hurried on. He had noticed how very

fast she walked from the first, keeping even with his horse, though looking so tired.

"Can you not tell me?"

"I-I don't know," she said, uncertainly; "you ought to know. It's like when the preacher prays-an' you feel all at once how wicked you are-a -an'-an' how good you'd like to be if you could; only the singing-"

"Well?"

"It did more than that, someway," she said, breathlessly; for it is not easy to walk rapidly through clumps of wild growth in a forest and talk at the same time. “I know a woman—an old woman-who got religion once just at a prayer-meetin'; an' she told me that the man that prayed wasn't even a preacher, but the things he said meant more'cause he'd seen a heap of trouble-meant more an' was more beautiful-like than she thought any human could ever talk, an'-an' so she felt it was the hand of the Good Man that was on him; an' it touched her heart, too, an' she saw what heaven might mean if people was only fit for it. And I-"

"Well-and you?"

His voice was soft as her own as he spoke. He was unspeakably impressed by the serious reverence with which she spoke of things sacred to her, and with ever and anon her face turned upward to him, as if with the certainty that he understood clearer than herself the divinity back of the prayers that help; and he-a flush of regret crept over

him in the dark at the thought of how little he deserved that belief from anyone. He had never appeared to himself quite such a graceless scamp as he did in the light of her simplicity. The fact that her words were slurred and uncouth did not touch him just then-all her provincialisms were covered by the way in which she looked at him, and the faith her manner expressed; and his tones were no longer quizzical as he said, questioningly, “And you?"

"I-well, I used to wonder a heap just what she meant. I'd study an' study about it-an' the religion—yes, sir, till that day you sung there at the funeral; then I knew when I heard you what it meant—the hand of the Good Man that touches people all at once. And I allowed," she added, simply, "if ever I saw you again, to tell you."

"Why?"

"I don't know-hardly," she said, in a doubtful, troubled way; "only to just say 'Thank ye, sir,' 'cause ye helped me some."

"Good Lord!" he half-whispered; and then after a little he spoke aloud:

"I owe you the thanks, little girl. Just before I met you I was finding fault with my luck that lost me the path on the mountain, and all the time the Good Man was leading me right over the snake-den to hear things that are good for me; strange that you should happen to meet me just at the edge of that crevice."

she

"Bud-he says there ain't any things happen,' said, naively. "He says everything we do has some purpose back of it, even if we don't know it. I don't know; but he allows so."

The name

"Bud? Who is it you call Bud?" he asked. was so much more childish than the acceptance of fatalism. "That is a name for a child or a girl, is it not?"

"It stands for 'brother,' I reckon; he's always had it, anyway-him, Bud Lennard. He's the best man I ever knew, sir-or," she added, "he would be if he had religion; but he hain't got it."

Her regret that he had not got it was very evident from the plaintive tone of the acknowledgment. They had reached now the "neck" of the point, as it was called—a bit of solid ground like an isthmus that joined to the mountain that great level that had shrunk, or been torn away, from the "mother" side, and left a gulf between them passable but at one place. The shadows were deep about it, for the pines grew there; and he looked about in astonishment as he noted them.

"I surely was here before!" he said to her. "I remember my horse did not want to pass that white stump."

"'Cause it stands where the rest of that rock-land is goin' to break away sometime, I reckon," she explained. "Yes, sir, you crossed there before or you wouldn't a been where I saw you."

"But I've been riding for an hour and a half straight ahead," he persisted.

"You've been ridin' in a circle straight around," said his Daphne, with a little smile at his wonder. "That's nothin', sir; folks do that generally when they're lost on the mountain. I don't know why they do, but they do."

She had halted a moment, leaning, panting and tired, against one of the pine-trees, as he rode across the "divide" and stopped beside her.

"I'll show ye the road in a minute, sir," she said; right above here is where ye strayed off it. Natural enough, too, 'cause the cattle an' hogs, they've got a path over the Neck; they go for the red-oak acorns over there in the winter. Yes, sir; but you can find the road now, I allow, 'cause this is the only plain trail that takes off between this

an' the township road, two miles up. I-I reckon that's where ye want to go?

"That is where I started for from Riker's, but it has not been the short cut' they promised me; and now," he added, getting out of the saddle, "may I ask which way you are going?"

She drew back a little and looked up at him with something of hesitation in her manner. Did she not want him to know where she lived? Was she really a Daphne, who would disappear if once again she gained the shadows of the laurel ?

"I go on the same road as you do," she said, after a little, "only the other way; and I must go, sir. It must be getting awful late," she breathed, fearfully. He looked at his watch by the light of a match.

"Twenty minutes past nine," he said, and wondered at the despairing little cry that broke from her.

"Oh! I must hurry. Good-bye, sir," she gasped, tremulously. "The moon will be up in a little, an' you can find the road then-or the horse will find it, anyway, if you let him guide you; an’—an' I do thank you, sir.”

But as she turned to go she felt a detaining hand on her shoulder.

"You poor frightened child!" he said, compassionately, as he felt her trembling; "you look ready to drop. You must ride my horse home; yes, you must. I could never turn away and leave you here, tired as you are. If you are in such a hurry to get home, you will save time by letting me put you in the saddle at once,” he added.

Oh, I will, then," she agreed, hurriedly, "for I must hurry. I've been gone now so long; most all day. Yes, sir, I will, if you please."

He lifted her to the saddle, where she drooped in a limp, tired way that filled him with pity.