abiding-place; but, although he was very weary
from his rough and tedious ride over the mountain, he found that slumber
was hard to woo, and he, too, lay awake for long hours, wondering over the
strange experience of the evening, and what hard fate--for hard he felt
sure it must have been--could have driven a cultivated gentleman like Mr.
Abbot, and his peerless daughter, who was so well fitted to shine in the
most brilliant circles of the world, away from the haunts of civilization
into that wilderness, and among the rude, uncultured, uncongenial people
of a mining region.

Chapter III.

Mr. Heath Talks of Becoming a Miner.

The next morning broke fair and beautiful.

Every trace of the storm had passed away, save that the dust was laid and
all nature looked fresher and brighter for the copious bath it had
received.

Virgie Abbot, despite her sleeplessness during the first half of the
night, was up at an early hour, superintending breakfast for her father
and their guest.

If she had been lovely the previous evening she was doubly so now in her
pretty flannel wrapper--for the mornings were chilly in that region, even
in the summer The wrapper was of a light blue tint, wonderfully becoming
to her delicate complexion, and harmonized well with her eyes and the
dainty pink in her cheeks.

Her face wore a brighter, more eager look, than was its wont, this
morning, and she was full of life and energy that was born of her youth
and sunny, hopeful temperament.

The incidents of the previous evening had been a pleasant break in her
hitherto monotonous life, and she was now looking forward, with no small
degree of interest, to meeting by daylight the handsome stranger who had
taken refuge with them.

During all the years that she had been in that rude place she had not seen
one real gentleman, excepting her father; they had never before
entertained a visitor, and there had been nothing but her reading and
studies, her drawing and fancy work, to vary the quiet, almost dull
uniformity of her existence.

Mr. Abbot himself looked brighter and better as he came out from his
chamber and gave Virgie his usual morning greeting and caress.

This visit had evidently done him good also, and Virgie took "heart of
grace" from the fact, and put aside, for the time at least, the anxious
fears that had so burdened her the night before.

Breakfast was served in the simple but clean and cheerful kitchen which
led from t