f-raised herself from the wall. One hand rested
there; the other was held out to me in reproof.

"And how have you done it, David? With a year of silence."

"But that day on the Avenue?" I said.

"There were other days on the Avenue which you could have remembered,"
she returned. "There was that day when we met--after long years. And
that day I remembered the valley and the boy who had come into the
mountains to help me; I remembered my father's last words to us, and
for a little while I was foolish enough to think that it must be for
that that I had found you again."

I would have taken the outstretched hand, but she drew it away quickly
and stepped back.

"And do you think I had forgotten the mountains that day?" I said.
"Why, Penelope, I loved you that day as I love you now, as I have from
the morning when you and I rode into the valley together."

I took a step toward her, but she moved from me, and stood with her
hands clasped behind her back and her head tilted proudly as she looked
up at me.

"It sounds well," she said, her lips curling in disdain. "But how
about Miss Dodd, or Miss Todd?"

"Why will you be forever casting that up at me?" I protested. "For a
time I did forget. I was a plain fool. But, Penelope----"

"I must be going," she said; but though she pointed toward the slope
down which I had come from the little piazza, she really went again to
the wall and stood there where I first found her, as though held
spellbound by the view.

I was beside her. "Penelope," I said firmly, "there are some things
which you and I must straighten out here and now."

"There is nothing to straighten out," she said. "Everything is
settled. We are friends." Lifting a hand, she pointed over the plain.
"What does that remind you of, David?"

"A little of the valley," I answered. Then I raised my hand too.
"There are the mountains, Penelope, and just before them the ridge over
which we rode that morning. Do you remember it? Do you remember how
Nathan ran away over the trail, how you clung to me and called to me to
save you? Home should be down there where you see the village. Do you
remember----"

Penelope was looking from me, as though at the stone house, its roof
just showing in the green of giant oaks.

Again she raised her hand. "And the barn, David--the big white
barn--there!" she cried. Then she checked herself. She was very
straight and very still. "I was forgetting," she said.

A