a
furrow fer the irrigatin'; but I guess you c'n make it."

She went down the shaded aisle between the orange-trees, Mrs. Sproul
looking after her dubiously, as a person guilty of a serious breach of
decorum in asking to see any one alone.

Melissa leaned on her hoe, and watched her approach with listless
amazement. She took in every detail of her daintily clad
loveliness,--the graceful sway of her drapery as she walked, the cluster
of roses in her belt, and the wide hat with its little forest of curling
plumes.

"You are Melissa?" The stranger put out her softly gloved hand, and
Melissa took it in limp, rustic acquiescence. "Mr. Sterling wished me
to come,--and I wanted to come myself,--to thank you for what you did;
it was very kind, and you were very brave to undertake it, and for one
you scarcely knew--it was very, _very_ good of you."

Melissa colored to the little ripples of vivid hair about her temples.

"Is he gone away?" she asked, rubbing her hands up and down on the worn
handle of the hoe.

"No, but he is going this evening. Of course he could not stay. It would
be very painful for him, for all of you. Is there anything he can do for
you? He will be so glad if he can be of use to you in any way"-- She
hesitated, watching the pained look grow in her listener's face.

"Ain't he never comin' back?" asked Melissa wistfully.

Annette opened her brown eyes wide, and fixed them on the girl's face.

"I don't know," she faltered.

"I'd like to keep his hankecher," Melissa broke out tremulously. "I hurt
my arm oncet up where they was blastin', and he tied it up fer me with
his hankecher. I was takin' it to 'im that Sunday. I had it all washed
and done up. I'd like to keep it, though,--if you think he wouldn't
care." Her eyes filled, and her voice broke treacherously. "That's all.
Tell 'im good-by."

Annette was gazing at her breathlessly. It came over her like a cloud,
the poverty, the hopelessness, the dreariness of it all. She made a
little impetuous rush forward.

"Oh, yes, yes," she said eagerly, through her tears; "and he is so
sorry, and he sent you these,"--she took the roses from her belt, her
lover's roses, and thrust them into Melissa's nerveless grasp,--"and
I--oh, _I_ shall love you always!"

Then she turned, and hurried through the sun and shadow of the orchard
back to the carriage.

"I am ready to go now," she said, somewhat stiffly, to her father.

All the way down the dusty mountain