ed that he stood
there shoeless; and, giving a little cry, would have run barefoot down
the moonlit rocky steps, preventing him.

But he had sprung to his unshod feet, and with a cry rushed up to her,
disregarding the thorns.

She sank, crossing her arms as a slave--in homage, or, it may be, to
protect her maiden breasts.

"No, no--" she murmured, sliding low within his arms. "Look first
around, if our house be worthy!"

But he caught her up, and lifting her, crushing her body to his, carried
her into the hut.

Chapter VII.

HOUSEKEEPING.

She awoke at daybreak to the twittering of birds. Raising herself
little by little, she bent over him, studying the face of her beloved.
He slept on; and after a while she slipped from the couch, collected her
garments in a bundle, tiptoed to the door, and lifting its curtain,
stole out to the dawn.

Mist filled the valley below the fall. A purple bank of vapour blocked
the end of it. But the rolling outline was edged already with gold, and
already ray upon ray of gold shivered across the upper sky and touched
the pinewoods at the head of the pass.

Clad in cloak and night-rail, shod in loose slippers of Indian
leather-work, she moved across to the fire she had banked overnight.
Beside it a bold robin had perched on the rim of the cooking-pot.
He fluttered up to a bough, and thence watched her warily. She remade
the fire, building a cone of twigs; fetched water, scoured the cauldron,
and hung it again on its bar. As she lifted it the sunlight glinted on
the ring her lover had brought for the wedding and had slipped on her
finger in the cabin, binding her by this only rite.

The fire revived and crackled cheerfully. She caught up the bundle
again and climbed beside the stream, following its right bank until she
came to the pool of her choice. There, casting all garments aside, she
went down to it, and the alders hid her.

Half an hour later she returned and paused on the threshold of the hut,
the sunlight behind her. In her arms she carried a cluster--a bundle
almost--of ferns and autumnal branches--cedar and black-alder, the one
berried with blue the other with coral, maple and aromatic spruce, with
trails of the grape vine. He was awake and lay facing the door,
half-raised on his left elbow.

"This for good-morning!" She held out the armful to show him, but so
that it hid her blushes. Then, dropping the cluster on the floor, she
ran and knelt, bow