had been to partition off a room in the well-built barn
for the accommodation of the men. Jake, who loved Elizabeth with a
dog-like fidelity, came and went about the house more freely than the
rest, and saw the two seated about the sitting-room lamp, and was as glad
as if he had had a place among them.

"It's hers, God bless 'er!" he had said the night after John's departure,
"an' I'm mighty glad she's got it. She ain't had much t' make 'er glad
since I've been around these diggin's."

Those were evenings never to be forgotten. As Hugh read, Elizabeth
listened with the open-mouthed joy of girlhood, but the substance of what
they read was viewed from the standpoint of a woman. Hugh found the girl's
mind keen and alert. They began to turn to the classics, and Hugh Noland,
whose profession it had been to teach, was surprised and delighted with
the aptitude and viewpoints of his pupil. Elizabeth pursued literature
with her usual thoroughgoing absorption; the dictionary was brought out
and laid upon the table, and with it she spent long hours when Hugh was in
the field.

The second week in June, Hugh Noland was brought to a sudden stop in the
delicious holiday experience by a remark of Elizabeth's. The book had been
finished earlier than was usual for them to stop reading, and it had been
decided that it was too late to begin another that night. Hugh was not
ready to go to bed, and sat watching her as she straightened up the
littered table. A book of poems they had once read fell open and the girl
picked it up and began to read to herself. In a moment she was literally
engulfed in it, and he watched her deep abstraction in full sympathy with
the mood it represented. Presently she began to read aloud.

Elizabeth read on and on, and Hugh dropped back into his chair and
listened, studying her as she stood before him reading so intently that
she forgot that she stood. When the end was reached she dropped the book
on the table with a rapturous indrawn breath.

"I never knew what real happiness was before," she said. "I wonder if they
read in heaven?"

"They'd have to let us read in our heaven or it wouldn't be heaven," Hugh
Noland replied.

With the words still in his mouth he realized what he had said. The
serpent had invaded their paradise: henceforth they would wander outside
of its confines. With a self-conscious flush, he shifted the eyes into
which she was looking, and arose to say good-night.

Although she did not