which had faded from its original color to a sort of turquoise green. The stuff was heavy and clung closely to her figure, and she rode easily, perched on her small, old-fashioned side-saddle, swaying with lithe movement to the motion of her horse. She wore no wrap, only a soft silk kerchief knotted about her neck, the fluttering ends of which caressed her chin.

Her cheeks became rosy with the exercise, and her gray eyes, under the green pines and among the dense laurel thickets, took on a warm, luminous green tint like the hue of her dress. David at last found it difficult to keep his eyes from her, — this veritable flower of the wilderness, — and all this time no word had been spoken between them. How impersonal and far away from him she seemed! While he was filled with interest in her and eager to learn the