ty, tired after their long trip on
the train and two hours' drive up the rough road from the station to
the lake, surrendered to the high mountain stillness, and even Rollo
Todd, who had been in his best spirits all day, fell silent and forgot
that he was a jolly good fellow, remembered only that he was a poet.
Eva Darling, who had flirted shamelessly with Mr. Dinwiddie from New
York to Huntersville, forgot to hold his hand, and he forgot her
altogether.

Mary had a sudden and complete sense of isolation. Memory had played
her a trick. These were the mountains of her girlhood, and she was
Mary Ogden once more. Even the future that had been so hard of outline
in her practical mind, that unescapable future just beyond a brief
interval in an Austrian mountain solitude, seemed to sink beyond a
horizon infinitely remote. Europe was as unreal as New York. She
vowed, if it were necessary to vow, that she would give neither a
thought while she was here in the wilderness. And as she was a
thorough-going person she knew she would succeed.

She took her first step when Mr. Dinwiddie was showing them to their
rooms. She drew Gora into her own room and shut the door.

"I want you to do me a favor--if you will, dear Miss Dwight," she said.

"Of course." Gora wondered what was coming.

"I want you to ask the others to abandon their subtle game while we are
up here and ignore the subjects of Lee's play, his future, his genius,
which will wither outside of New York, and cease to attempt to strike
terror into my soul. You may tell them that we are to be married in a
month or two from now--in Austria--but that I shall do nothing to
interfere with his career; nor protest against his passing a part of
each year in the United States. Ask them kindly to refrain from
congratulations, or any allusion to the subject whatever. We have only
eight days here, and I should like it to be as nearly perfect as
possible."

Gora had had the grace to blush. "They have been worried, and I'm
afraid they hatched a rather naughty plot. But they'll be delighted to
have their apprehensions banished--and of course they'll ignore the
entire matter. They won't say a word to Clavey, either."

"They've not made the slightest impression on him, so it really doesn't
matter whether they do or not. But--when it dawned on me what they
were up to, and the sound reasoning beneath it, I will confess that I
had some bad half-hours. Of course, Lee has a