g and impenitent captive, two of them ingeniously
keeping behind her so that she should have no opportunity of even
exchanging a backward glance with the serpent.

Left to himself the serpent moodily kicked holes in the turf. He had an
intense desire to do something violent--to smash something, no matter
what. He was furious with the trio of aunts. It was a shame, he told
himself, to bury alive a beautiful and noble young woman like that,
through a warped and mistaken notion of the world. What right had they
to condemn a sweet and affectionate creature such as she to a starved
and morbid spinsterhood? It was his duty to rescue her from the
colorless fate that hung over her, and he would do his duty. He was
unconsciously flexing his biceps as he said it.

Would he? How? Should he get out a search warrant or a writ of replevin?
This whimsical view of the case only exasperated him the more as it
presented the utter hopelessness of approaching her--of ever seeing her
again--and, when the dogs came chasing an utterly inconsequential and
useless butterfly in his direction, he pelted them with stones until
they yelped. Hang the dogs, anyhow. It was all their fault!

Next he blamed himself. If he had only resisted that creek like a man he
wouldn't have been a hundred miles from home without clothes or money,
and silly about a girl he had never seen until that day.

Then he blamed the girl. Why, _why_ was she such a confiding and
altogether artless and bewitching little fool? She wasn't! He remembered
her eyes and abjectly apologized to the memory of her. She was
everything that was sweet and pure and womanly--everything that was
desirable in every sense--well-bred, well-schooled, unspoiled of the
world, without guile or subterfuge, beautiful, healthy, honest. That had
been the only startling thing about her--just honesty. It spoke ill for
himself and the world in which he lived that this should have seemed
startling! What a wonderful creature she was! By the Eternal, she
belonged to him and he meant to have her! She loved him, too!

He sat down on the bank to think over this phase of the question. He had
known her several years in the minute and a half since noon, and it was
time this foolishness came to an end.

Time flies when youth listens to the fancied strains of Mendelssohn's
Spring Song. He was surprised, presently, to note a strange hush
settling down over the woods. A chill vapor seemed to arise from the
water. T