his face turned upward toward the mountain
peaks in the distance; his lips curved in a slow smile. He fancied that he
could see the girl's winsome face lighted with merriment as she played,
knowing his surprise. Once, he started impulsively toward the door, but
paused, hesitating, and turned back. When the music ceased, he went to the
open window that looked out into the rose garden, and watched expectantly.

Presently, he heard her low-voiced song as she came through the orange
grove beyond the Ragged Robin hedge. Then he glimpsed her white dress at
the little gate in the corner. Then she stood in full view.

The artist had, so far, seen Sibyl only in her mountain costume of soft
brown,--made for rough contact with rocks and underbrush,--with felt hat
to match, and high, laced boots, fit for climbing. She was dressed, now,
as Conrad Lagrange had seen her that first time in the garden, when he was
hiding from Louise Taine. The man at the window drew a little back, with a
low exclamation of pleased surprise and wonder. Was that lovely creature
there among the roses his girl comrade of the hills? The Sibyl Andres he
had known--in the short skirt and high boots of her mountain garb--was a
winsome, fanciful, sometimes serious, sometimes wayward, maiden. This
Sibyl Andres, gowned in clinging white, was a slender, gracefully tall,
and beautifully developed woman.

Slowly, she came toward the studio end of the garden; pausing here and
there to bend over the flowers as though in loving, tender greeting;
singing, the while, her low-voiced melody; unafraid of the sunshine that
enveloped her in a golden flood, undisturbed by the careless fingers of
the wind that caressed her hair. A girl of the clean out-of-doors, she
belonged among the roses, even as she had been at home among the pines and
oaks of the mountains. The artist, fascinated by the lovely scene, stood
as though fearing to move, lest the vision vanish.

Then, looking up, she saw him, and stretched out her hands in a gesture
of greeting, with a laugh of pleasure.

"Don't move, don't move!" he called impulsively. "Hold the pose--please
hold it! I want you just as you are!"

The girl, amused at his tragic earnestness, and at the manner of his
welcome, understood that the zeal of the artist had brushed aside the
polite formalities of the man; and, as unaffectedly natural as she did
everything, gave herself to his mood.

Dragging his easel with the blank canvas upon i