lled
diplomat at the court of love.

Had she met Miss Woppit? Yes, and then again no. She had been rambling
in the glen yesterday and, coming down the road, had stopped near the
pathway leading to The Bower to pick a wild flower of exceeding
brilliancy. About to resume her course to camp she became aware that
another stood near her. A woman, having passed noiselessly from the
cabin, stood in the gravelly pathway looking upon the girl with an
expression wholly indefinable. The woman was young, perhaps twenty; she
was tall and of symmetrical form, though rather stout; her face was
comely, perchance a bit masculine in its strength of features, and the
eyes were shy, but of swift and certain glance, as if instantaneously
they read through and through the object upon which they rested.

"You frightened me," said Mary Lackington, and she had been startled,
truly; "I did not hear you coming, and so I was frightened when I saw you
standing there."

To this explanation the apparition made no answer, but continued to
regard Mary steadfastly with the indefinable look--an expression partly
of admiration, partly of distrust, partly of appeal, perhaps. Mary
Lackington grew nervous; she did therefore the most sensible thing she
could have done under the circumstances--she proceeded on her way
homeward.

This, then, was Mary's first meeting with Miss Woppit. Not particularly
encouraging to a renewal of the acquaintance; yet now that Mary had so
delicate and so important a mission to execute she burned to know more of
the lonely creature on that hill side, and she accepted with enthusiasm,
as I have said, the charge committed to her by the enamored Hoover.

Sir Charles and his daughter remained at the camp about three weeks. In
that time Mary became friendly with Miss Woppit, as intimate, in fact, as
it was possible for anybody to become with her. Mary found herself drawn
strangely and inexplicably toward the woman. The fascination which Miss
Woppit exercised over her was altogether new to Mary; here was a woman of
lowly birth and in lowly circumstances, illiterate, neglected, lonely,
yet possessing a charm--an indefinable charm which was distinct and
potent, yet not to be analyzed--yes, hardly recognizable by any process
of cool mental dissection, but magically persuasive in the subtlety of
its presence and influence. Mary had sought to locate, to diagnose that
charm; did it lie in her sympathy with the woman's lonely l