y good-night and he followed
his host to the little attic room where he had slept as a boy, and
which Mrs. Follet had made ready for him, because he had insisted that
it was just the place for him. The house was small and he knew
somebody must vacate comfortable quarters if he slept elsewhere.

But once in the old bed Steve did not find fair memories crowding
about as he had anticipated. Even the echoing sweet songs lost their
melody. Indeed he could think of nothing but the fact that Nancy and
Raymond Colton sat together on the front porch, left there by her
parents as though he had special rights. A midnight thunder-storm
caught up his perturbed thought with noisy energy.

"But why not!" he exclaimed sadly for the hundredth time to his
rebellious heart. "You certainly have no claim."

But that lately aroused, throbbing fountain of love's pulsations
replied with vehemence: "I have! I have loved her every moment since I
first looked upon her as a little girl, and I love her in her sweet
maturity with all my soul. She is mine!"

So the wordy war went on between his good sense and his yearning
heart, banishing every dear, cherished memory and postponing sleep
till the wee morning hours.

Next day after the breakfast dishes were done, Mrs. Follet proposed
that Nancy take Steve for a ride with Gyp and the family horse over to
the Greely woods, their old favourite haunt, and this exactly suited
Steve, for, in spite of the night's disturbance, nothing could please
him more than an opportunity for companionship with Nancy alone, and
he was still impatient to see if his memory of that rugged ridge of
woodland was correct.

He went out at once to saddle the horses. It was a crisp, cool, clear
morning after the storm, and Nancy soon appeared in a trim riding
habit and cap with deep visor to shade the eyes. The severe lines and
dark blue of her costume made charming contrast to her softly rounded
face, with its delicate colouring and the stray yellow tendrils of
hair which were always slipping out from the fluffy braids which
bound her head. She surely was fair to look upon, and when Steve had
assisted her to mount in the old way,--holding out his hand and she
stepping upon it in laughing ease,--she sat her pony with the graceful
poise of the true Kentucky girl, making a picture which less partial
observers than Steve could not have failed to find full of charm. They
cantered off briskly down the road.

When they reached