ing her face upon the couch beside him. But laying a
palm against either temple he forced her to lift it and gaze at him,
mastering the lovely shame.

He looked long into her eyes. "You are very beautiful," he said slowly.

She sprang to her feet. "See the dew on my shoes! I have bathed,
and--" with a gesture of the hand towards the scattered boughs--
"afterwards I pulled these for you. But I was in haste and late
because--because--" She explained that while bathing she had let the
ring, which was loose and heavy, slip from her finger into the pool.
It had lodged endwise between two pebbles, and she had taken some
minutes to find it. "As for these," she said, "the flowers are all
done, but I like the leaves better. In summer our housekeeping might
have been make-believe; now, with the frosts upon us, we shall have hard
work, and a fire to give thanks for."

He slid from the couch and, standing erect, threw a bath-gown over his
shoulders. "I must build a chimney," he said, looking around; "a
chimney and a stone hearth."

"Then our house will be perfect."

"I will start this very day. . . . Show me the way to your pool."

They ate their breakfast on the stone above the fall, in the warm
sunshine, planning and talking together like children. He would build
the chimney; but first he must climb down to the lower valley and find
Bayard, deserted at the foot of the falls, and left to wander all night
at will.

He must take the mare, too, she said; and promised to start him on the
bridle-path, so that he could not miss it.

"What! Must I ride on a side-saddle?"

"It should be easy for you," she laughed. "You pretended to know all
about it when you taught me." In the end it was settled that she should
ride and he walk beside till Bayard was found. "Then you can lead her
back and leave her with Mr. Strongtharm."

"But I shall need Bayard to bring home a sack of lime for my mortar.
And you are over thoughtful for Madcap. I walked up to inspect the
pasture, and there is enough to last the pair for a week. It is odds,
too, we find some burnt lands at the back of these woods, with patches
of good grass. Let us keep the horses up here, at any rate until the
nights turn colder. A taste of hard faring will be good for their
pampered flesh, as for mine. Besides--though you may not know it--I am
a first-class groom."

"As well as a mason? You will have to turn hunter, too, before long,
else your cook wi