ctim of the prevailing necromancy, for its rough,
hand-split and weatherbeaten shingles were now a shimmering
olive-silver.

Mike gave voice to a joyful yelp, and tried to crowd past his owner's
legs, for he had seen, or sensed, Rose even before the latter became
aware of the presence of their little friend. She was standing, alone,
on the outer edge of the tiny stoop, whose darkened doorway formed a
black background, against which her figure appeared, cameo-like. The
flooding brightness lifted her form and face, seen in profile, into
sharp relief, and the shadow which it cast on the grass made her appear
the more tall and slender. Grown and subtly altered she undoubtedly was,
thought Donald. The girlish curves and lithesomeness had not departed;
but they carried a suggestion of approaching maturity. Her wavy hair no
longer hung unbound about her face, but was dressed in two braids, one
of which had fallen forward across her breast. Shoes and stockings
covered her legs; but the simple dress still left her neck and arms
bare, and the flesh was robbed of its color and made alabaster, the
golden threads stolen from the dark hair and replaced by a silver sheen,
so that there was something ethereal, but startlingly beautiful, in the
picture.

Holding the violently wriggling Mike in check, one hand on his collar,
the other grasping his jaws, Donald stole silently forward until he had
passed the corner of the cabin, and his own shadow had crept forward,
and laid itself at the girl's feet.

Suddenly she perceived it, and turned with a question in her shadowy
eyes. Her lips parted, then curved into the familiar magic smile, as she
cried, "Oh, Doctor MacDonald. You've _come_."

Mike twisted free, and, with a mad bound and wiggle, threw himself on
the girl, who caught him in her arms. Then, holding him against her, she
somehow succeeded in extending one hand, shapely and slender, to meet
the man's two eager ones.

"Oh, grandpap," she thrilled through the doorway. "Hurry out hyar. Dr.
Mac hes come fer ter see ye."

A sense of vague disappointment possessed Donald as he heard her lapse
into the musical, but provincial, dialect; but, seeming to read his
thought that the year of study had not been able to alter it, she
whispered, "I always talk like I used to, to him, for he likes it best."

"I see, and you're quite right, too," was his low-voiced reply, as he
heard the old man's heavy tread crossing the bare floor within.