glorious morning thrilled both
horse and master as they leaped forward and still forward till, on the
top of a grassy rise, a sudden halt was made.

For what was this coming out of the west?--this fair white creature on
her snowy mount, with the golden sunlight on her yellow hair, her
glowing face, her modest maiden breast. Flowers wreathed her all about
and a White Bow gleamed at her saddle horn. Behind her, and one on
either side, rode dusky warriors, brave in their finest trappings and
turning a reverent, attentive ear to the Maid's words. Their horses'
footfalls deadened by the sodden grass, slowly they came into fuller
view, as a picture grows under the painter's brush.

Still the man on the black horse facing them sat still, spellbound.
Could this be Kitty, his Kitty; to whom his thoughts had turned as to
a half-grown, playful child, and over whom he had domineered with the
masterful pride of boyhood? He was a man now, boyhood was past; but he
had quite forgotten that girlhood also passes and the child becomes a
woman.

He had grown rich and strong. After her supposed death he had devoted
himself wholly to money-getting with the singleness of purpose that
never fails of its object. He had come back to his old home to spend
the fortune he had gained, feeling himself a master among men and his
strength that of wisdom as well as wealth.

Now all his pride and arrogance passed from him before the nobility of
this woman approaching. For on her youthful face sat the dignity which
is higher than pride and from her beautiful eyes gleamed the
beneficent love more far-reaching than wealth.

After a moment Gaspar rode slowly forward again, and soon espying, but
not recognizing, him, the Sun Maid advanced. Then all at once the
black horse and the white galloped to a meet.

"Kitty! My Kitty!"

[Illustration: "KITTY! MY KITTY!" _Page 258_.]

"Gaspar!"

Their hands closed in a clasp that banished years of separation, and
the black eyes searched the blue, questioning for the one sweet answer
that rules all the world. There was a swift self-revelation in both
hearts; a consciousness that this was what the God who made them had
meant from the beginning. With a grave exaltation too deep and too
high for words, the pure man and the pure woman came to their destiny
and accepted it. Then their hands fell apart, the black Tempest
wheeled into place beside the white Snowbird, and, as on a day long in
the past, the pair passed