through a great pine athwart her bare black head and her slanted eyes. She wore a pale green sweater and had bound a fillet of linnaea vine about her hair. The feathery fountain of trailing spruce overflower her arms and fell around her. Allan Tierney’s eyes lighted up.

“I’ve had a caller,” said Barney the next afternoon, when Valancy had returned from another flower quest.

“Who?” Valancy was surprised but indifferent. She began filling a basket with arbutus.

“Allan Tierney. He wants to paint you, Moonlight.”

“Me!” Valancy dropped her basket and her arbutus. “You’re laughing at me, Barney.”

“I’m not. That’s