imbing upon the pedestal where that lady justly stood.
The two had not become friends as Hale hoped. June was always silent and
reserved when the older girl was around, but there was never a move of
the latter's hand or foot or lip or eye that the new pupil failed
to see. Miss Anne rallied Hale no little about her, but he laughed
good-naturedly, and asked why SHE could not make friends with June.

"She's jealous," said Miss Saunders, and Hale ridiculed the idea, for
not one sign since she came to the Gap had she shown him. It was the
jealousy of a child she had once betrayed and that she had outgrown,
he thought; but he never knew how June stood behind the curtains of her
window, with a hungry suffering in her face and eyes, to watch Hale and
Miss Anne ride by and he never guessed that concealment was but a sign
of the dawn of womanhood that was breaking within her. And she gave no
hint of that breaking dawn until one day early in May, when she heard a
woodthrush for the first time with Hale: for it was the bird she loved
best, and always its silver fluting would stop her in her tracks and
send her into dreamland. Hale had just broken a crimson flower from its
stem and held it out to her.

"Here's another of the 'wan ones,' June. Do you know what that is?"

"Hit's"--she paused for correction with her lips drawn severely in for
precision--"IT'S a mountain poppy. Pap says it kills goslings"--her eyes
danced, for she was in a merry mood that day, and she put both hands
behind her--"if you air any kin to a goose, you better drap it."

"That's a good one," laughed Hale, "but it's so lovely I'll take the
risk. I won't drop it."

"Drop it," caught June with a quick upward look, and then to fix the
word in her memory she repeated--"drop it, drop it, DROP it!"

"Got it now, June?"

"Uh-huh."

It was then that a woodthrush voiced the crowning joy of spring, and
with slowly filling eyes she asked its name.

"That bird," she said slowly and with a breaking voice, "sung just
that-a-way the mornin' my sister died."

She turned to him with a wondering smile.

"Somehow it don't make me so miserable, like it useter." Her smile
passed while she looked, she caught both hands to her heaving breast and
a wild intensity burned suddenly in her eyes.

"Why, June!"

"'Tain't nothin'," she choked out, and she turned hurriedly ahead of
him down the path. Startled, Hale had dropped the crimson flower to his
feet. He saw it and he l