lushed and his brown, close-cropped
curls were wet as if he had been ducking them into the cold river water.

He waved one hand gayly; the other was carrying a pail of water.

"You look so _clean_!" gave back Maria Angelina impetuously, her
laughter rising to meet his, but her sensitive blood coloring her face
before his gaze.

"There's the entire river to wash in. I thought you'd like it better out
of doors so I've built you a dressing room. . . . Meanwhile the
commissary will be working. Don't be too long, for breakfast will be
ready," he told her, passing by her into the house, with a gesture of
direction as if it were the most matter of fact thing in the world for
young men to cook breakfast and for young ladies to wash in rivers.

So Maria Angelina followed his directions and went down into the grove
of young birches that he called her dressing-room.

Here greenness was all about her, and through the delicate, interlacing
boughs before her even the river was shut out, except one eddying stream
of it that swerved in beneath her feet. There was lovely freshness in
the morning air, a lovely brightness in the sky above her. It was a
dressing-room for a nymph of the woods, for a dryad, for Diana herself.

Gratefully she stooped to the cold water at her feet. There on the bank,
upon a spread towel, she discovered soap and fresh towels, a comb and a
pair of military brushes, still wet from recent washing. He was very
sweet and thoughtful, that Barry Elder.

Valiantly she attacked that tangled hair of hers, reducing it to the
old submissive braids which she coroneted about her head, fastening them
with twigs as best she could, and then she washed deliciously in that
cold, running stream. It must be wonderful, she felt, to be a man and to
live like this. One could forget the world in such a place. . . .

Sandy dashed upon her, scattering the gathering darkness of her
thoughts, and she yielded to the young impulse to splash and romp with
him before returning with him to the cabin.

She felt shy about reentering that house . . . and Barry Elder's
presence.

A rich aroma of coffee greeted her upon the threshold. So did her host's
voice in mock severity.

"I sent Sandy to bring you in--and I was just coming after the two of
you. . . . Will you sit here? I did have a dressy thought of setting up
a table out of doors but this is handier--nearer the stove, you know.
You've no idea of the convenience of it."

"But you