lovely, and left out nothing but love. And yet the
master could not help feeling that some instinct was working in this
girl which was in some way leading her to seek his presence. She did not
lift her glittering eyes upon him as at first. It seemed strange that
she did not, for they were surely her natural weapons of conquest. Her
color did not come and go like that of young girls under excitement. She
had a clear brunette complexion, a little sun-touched, it may be,--for
the master noticed once, when her necklace was slightly displaced, that
a faint ring or band of a little lighter shade than the rest of the
surface encircled her neck. What was the slight peculiarity of her
enunciation, when she read? Not a lisp, certainly, but the least
possible imperfection in articulating some of the lingual sounds,--just
enough to be noticed at first, and quite forgotten after being a few
times heard.

Not a word about the flower on either side. It was not uncommon for
the schoolgirls to leave a rose or pink or wild flower on the teacher's
desk. Finding it in the Virgil was nothing, after all; it was a little
delicate flower, which looked as if it were made to press, and it was
probably shut in by accident at the particular place where he found it.
He took it into his head to examine it in a botanical point of view. He
found it was not common,--that it grew only in certain localities,--and
that one of these was among the rocks of the eastern spur of The
Mountain.

It happened to come into his head how the Swiss youth climb the sides
of the Alps to find the flower called the Edelweiss for the maidens
whom they wish to please. It is a pretty fancy, that of scaling some
dangerous height before the dawn, so as to gather the flower in its
freshness, that the favored maiden may wear it to church on Sunday
morning, a proof at once of her lover's devotion and his courage. Mr.
Bernard determined to explore the region where this flower was said to
grow, that he might see where the wild girl sought the blossoms of which
Nature was so jealous.

It was on a warm, fair Saturday afternoon that he undertook his
land-voyage of discovery. He had more curiosity, it may be, than he
would have owned; for he had heard of the girl's wandering habits, and
the guesses about her sylvan haunts, and was thinking what the chances
were that he should meet her in some strange place, or come upon traces
of her which would tell secrets she would not care to ha