artist--to change her mood--said,
"You _love_ the mountains, don't you?"

She turned her face toward him, again, as she answered simply, "Yes, I
love the mountains."

"If you were a painter,"--he smiled,--"you would paint them, wouldn't
you?"

"I don't know that I would,"--she answered thoughtfully,--"but I would try
to get the mountains into my picture, whatever it was. I wonder if you
know what I mean?"

"Yes," he answered, "I think I know what you mean; and it is a beautiful
thought. You wouldn't paint portraits, would you?"

"I don't think I _could_," she answered. "It seems to me it would be so
hard to get the mountains into a portrait of just anybody. An artist--a
great artist, I mean--must make his picture right, mustn't he? And if his
picture was a portrait of some one who wasn't very good, and he made it
right; he wouldn't be liked very well, would he? No, I don't think I would
paint portraits--unless I could paint just the people who would want me to
make my picture right."

Aaron King's face flushed at the words that were spoken so artlessly; and
he looked at her keenly. But the girl was wholly innocent of any purpose
other than to express her thoughts. She did not dream of the force with
which her simple words had gone home.

"You love the mountains, too, don't you?" she asked suddenly.

"Yes," he answered, "I love the mountains. I am learning to love them more
and more. But I fear I don't know them as well as you do."

"I was born up here," she said, "and lived here until a few years ago. I
think, sometimes, that the mountains almost talk to me."

"I wonder if you would help me to know the mountains as you know them," he
asked eagerly.

She drew a little back from him, but did not answer.

"We are neighbors, you see," he continued smiling. "I heard your violin,
the other evening, when I was fishing up the creek, near where you live;
and so I know it is you who live next door to us in the orange grove. Mr.
Lagrange and I are camped just over there back of the orchard. May we not
be friends? Won't you help me to know your mountains?"

"I know about you," she said. "Brian Oakley told us that you and Mr.
Lagrange were camped down here. Mr. Lagrange said that you are a good man;
Brian Oakley says that you are too--are you?"

The artist flushed. In his embarrassment, he did not note the significance
of her reference to the novelist. "At least," he said gently, "I am not a
very _bad_ man."

A sm