n spirals of smoke ascended here and there. The little brown roof
could never have revealed itself to any but a lover's eye; and that
discerned something even smaller, something like a pinkish speck, that
moved hither and thither on a piece of greensward that sloped to the
waterside.

"She's up!" Stephen exclaimed under his breath, his eyes shining, his
lips smiling. His voice had a note of hushed exaltation about it, as if
"she," whoever she might be, had, in condescending to rise, conferred a
priceless boon upon a waiting universe. If she were indeed a "up" (so
his tone implied), then the day, somewhat falsely heralded by the
sunrise, had really begun, and the human race might pursue its appointed
tasks, inspired and uplifted by the consciousness of her existence. It
might properly be grateful for the fact of her birth; that she had grown
to woman's estate; and, above all, that, in common with the sun, the
lark, the morning-glory, and other beautiful things of the early day,
she was up and about her lovely, cheery, heart-warming business.

[Illustration: "SHE'S UP!"]

The handful of chimneys and the smoke spirals rising here and there
among the trees on the river-bank belonged to what was known as the
Brier Neighborhood. There were only a few houses in all, scattered along
a side road leading from the river up to Liberty Centre. There were no
great signs of thrift or prosperity, but the Wiley cottage, the only one
near the water, was neat and well cared for, and Nature had done her
best to conceal man's indolence, poverty, or neglect.

Bushes of sweetbrier grew in fragrant little forests as tall as the
fences. Clumps of wild roses sprang up at every turn, and over all the
stone walls, as well as on every heap of rocks by the wayside, prickly
blackberry vines ran and clambered and clung, yielding fruit and thorns
impartially to the neighborhood children.

The pinkish speck that Stephen Waterman had spied from his side of the
river was Rose Wiley of the Brier Neighborhood on the Edgewood side. As
there was another of her name on Brigadier Hill, the Edgewood minister
called one of them the climbing Rose and the other the brier Rose, or
sometimes Rose of the river. She was well named, the pinkish speck. She
had not only some of the sweetest attributes of the wild rose, but the
parallel might have been extended as far as the thorns, for she had
wounded her scores,--hearts, be it understood, not hands. The wounding
was