a sunbeam, or a mist-shape that always eluded him.

He would lose her utterly, and would stand quite motionless, listening,
for a long time. Suddenly, without warning, an exaggerated leaf crown
would fall about his neck, and he would be overwhelmed with ridicule at
the outrageous figure he presented. Then for a time she seemed
everywhere at once. The mottled sunlight under the trees danced and
quivered after her, smiling and darkening as she dimpled or was grave.
The little whirlwinds of the gulches seized the leaves and danced with
her too, the birches and aspens tossed their hands, and rising ever
higher and wilder and more elf-like came the mocking cadences of her
laughter.

After a time she disappeared again. Bennington stood still, waiting for
some new prank, but he waited in vain. He instituted a search, but the
search was fruitless. He called, but received no reply. At last he made
his way again to the dell in which they had lunched, and there he found
her, flat on her back, looking at the little summer clouds through
wide-open eyes.

Her mood appeared to have changed. Indeed that seemed to be
characteristic of her; that her lightness was not so much the lightness
of thistle down, which is ever airy, the sport of every wind, but
rather that of the rose vine, mobile and swaying in every breeze, yet
at the same time rooted well in the wholesome garden earth. She cared
now to be silent. In a little while Bennington saw that she had fallen
asleep. For the first time he looked upon her face in absolute repose.

Feature by feature, line by line, he went over it, and into his heart
crept that peculiar yearning which seems, on analysis, half pity for
what has past and half fear for what may come. It is bestowed on little
children, and on those whose natures, in spite of their years, are
essentially childlike. For this girl's face was so pathetically young.
Its sensitive lips pouted with a child's pout, its pointed chin was
delicate with the delicacy that is lost when the teeth have had often
to be clenched in resolve; its cheek was curved so softly, its long
eyelashes shaded that cheek so purely. Yet somewhere, like an
intangible spirit which dwelt in it, unseen except through its littlest
effects, Bennington seemed to trace that subtle sadness, or still more
subtle mystery, which at times showed so strongly in her eyes. He
caught himself puzzling over it, trying to seize it. It was most like a
sorrow, and yet like a