and, promising a fire, I,
dripping and shivering as I was, could think of nothing to say in
protest. I did declare feebly that I was not cold. My teeth
chattered, and my body shook, and the girl looked up at me and laughed,
and led me on.

James, a man of a superstitious and imaginative mind, in the quiet
evenings on the barn-bridge had often told me strange stories in which
giants and dwarfs, witches and fairies, entangled men in their spells.
One of these tales, a favorite of his, came to me now and caused my
feet to lag and my eyes to study my guide with growing distrust. It
was of a lady called "Laura Lee," who, James said, sat on the bank of
the big river combing her hair and singing, the beauty of her face and
voice luring too curious sailormen to their destruction. It was a far
cry from the big river to the mountain brook, from the lovely "Laura
Lee" to this tiny girl, about whom all my careful scrutiny could
discover no sign of a comb. Yet it did seem to me that there was a
resemblance between the creature of the story, "the beautiful lady with
blue eyes and golden hair who hung around the water," and this child of
the woods who had no fear of snakes and boasted a professor for a
father. She felt the tug of my resisting hand.

"You're not afraid of me, are you, boy?" she asked, turning to me
sharply.

I, a boy of ten, afraid of this mite! Had she really been what I was
beginning to suspect, a decoy sent out by the Professor to lure me to
his den, she could not have used more cunning than to put to me such a
question. I afraid? Though the blood still waved through me, I
squared my shoulders, dissembled a laugh, and stepped before her, and
it was I who led the way along the path into the open day of the
clearing. There I came face to face with the Professor.

First I saw that he was human in shape and attire. Indeed, both his
appearance and his occupation were exceedingly commonplace. When we
came upon him he was leaning on a hoe and watching a passing cloud.
Had he smiled at me, I think I must have fallen to my knees and lifted
my hands in pleading, but he gave no sign of pleasure that another
victim had fallen into his toils. In fact, there was something
reassuring in the perfect indifference with which he regarded me. When
the crackling of the bushes called his eyes to us, he threw one glance
our way as though a trifle annoyed at being disturbed in his study.
Then he returned to the contempla