re be light,' and there was light. You were
it."

"You sill-y thing." Billy Louise did not seem to know whether she
wanted to laugh or cry. "What do you think you're talking about,
anyway?"

"About the way the world was made." Ward loosened his clasp a little
and looked down deep into her eyes. "My world, I mean." He bent and
kissed her again, gravely and very, very tenderly. "Oh, Wilhemina, you
know--" he waited, gazing down with that intent look which had a new
softness behind it--"you know there's nothing in this world but you.
As far as I'm concerned, there isn't. There never will be."

Billy Louise reached up her hands to his shoulders and tried to give
him a shake. "Is that why you've stuck yourself in these hills for
three whole months and never come near? You fibber!"

"That's why, lady-girl. I've been sticking here, working like one
son-of-a-gun--for you. So I could have you sooner." He lifted his
bent head and looked around the little cabin like a man who has just
wakened to his surroundings. "I knocked off work a little while ago,
and I was going to see you. I couldn't stand it any longer. And--here
you iss!" he went on, giving her shoulders a little squeeze. "A
straight case of 'two souls with but a single thought,' don't you
reckon?"

Billy Louise, by a visible effort, brought the situation down to earth.
She twisted herself free and went over to the stove and saved a
frying-pan of potatoes from burning to a crisp.

"I don't know about your soul," she said, glancing back at him. "I
happen to have two or three thoughts in mine. One is that I'm half
starved. The second is that you're not acting a bit nice, under the
circumstances; no perfectly polite young man makes love to a girl when
she is supposedly helpless and under his protection." She stopped
there to wrinkle her nose at him and twist her mouth humorously. "The
third thought is that if you don't behave, I shall go straight home and
never be nice to you again. And," she added, getting back of the
coffee-pot--which looked new--"the rest of my soul is one great big
blob of question-marks. If you can eat and talk at the same time, you
may tell me what this frantic industry is all about. If you can't,
I'll have to wait till after dinner; not even my curiosity is going to
punish my poor tummy any longer." She pulled a pan of biscuits from
the oven, lifted them out one at a time with dainty little nabs because
they were hot,