sirability of luggage. He also envied the other two their
horsemanship.

But the mule proved easier riding than he had expected. They traveled at
a slow, steady lope that ate up the miles imperceptibly, through wild
and beautiful country, always climbing; passing at first occasional
groups of unpainted pine houses which gave way, as they penetrated
farther into the hills, to rough log cabins, growing fewer and farther
apart. These had a bare, singularly unkempt look; and although many of
them were so old as to be tumbledown, they did not fit, somehow, into
their surroundings. It was as if nature had never yet accepted man and
his works, still tolerated him under protest, a blot upon her
loveliness.

Channing commented upon this. "Why are there no vines and flowers about,
nothing to make these pitiful places look as if people lived in them?"

"Folks is too busy wrestin' a livin' out of the bare yearth to pretty-up
much," explained the Apostle.

"But why stay here at all? Why not go down into the valleys, where land
is more fertile?"

The other answered quietly, "Folks that have lived on the mounting-top
ain't never content to be cooped up in the valleys, son."

"If you think the outsides are pitiful," exclaimed Philip, "wait till
you see the insides! I was only a child when we lived up here, but I
have never forgotten. I ought to have come back long ago. Frankly, I
have shirked it."

"When _you_ lived up here? Why, Philip! When did you ever live in the
mountains?" cried Jacqueline.

"Father and I brought my mother up here to get well. It was before you
appeared on the scene, dear."

"I'd forgotten. And she didn't get well," said the girl, pityingly,
reaching over to touch his hand. "Poor little boy Philip!"

Jacqueline could think of nothing more dreadful than a world without a
mother in it. The pathos of that lonely little fellow who was so soon to
lose his father, too, came over her in a wave.

"I _wish_ I had been alive then to comfort you!" she said, quite
passionately.

This new thing that had come to her lately had made her heart almost too
big and tender. Since she had learned to love Channing, that always
sensitive heart of hers ached and swelled with every grief or joy that
passed, as a wind-harp thrills to the touch of passing airs.

She looked back at her lover suddenly, to remind herself of the blissful
fact that he was there, and that presently, somehow, they would manage
to be alone togethe