cts to you in your own house; and goodbye to you
till we meet again."

His hand went out to the shoulder of the peasant and rested there for a
second in friendly feeling. Then the girl stretched out her hand also.
The old man took the two cups in one hand, and, reaching out the other,
let Sheila's fingers fall upon his own. He slowly crooked his neck, and
kissed her fingers with that distinction mostly to be found among those
few good people who live on the highest or the lowest social levels, or
in native tents.

"Ah, please God we meet again! and that I be let to serve you, Miss
Sheila Llyn. I have no doubt you could do with a little help some time
or another, the same as the rest of us. For all that's come between
us three, may it be given me, humble and poor, to help ye both that's
helped me so!"

Dyck turned to go, and as he did so a thought came to him.

"If you hadn't food and drink for us, what have you for yourself,
Christopher?" he asked. "Have you food to eat?"

"Ah, well--well, do ye think I'm no provider? There was no food cooked
was what I was thinking; but come and let me show you."

He took the cover off a jar standing in a corner. "Here's good flour,
and there's water, and there's manny a wild shrub and plant on the
hillside to make soup, and what more does a man want? With the scone
cooked and inside ye, don't ye feel as well as though ye'd had a pound
of beef or a rasher of bacon? Sure, ye do. I know where there's clumps
of wild radishes, and with a little salt they're good--the best. God
bless ye!"

A few moments later, as he stood in his doorway and looked along the
road, he saw two figures, the girl's head hardly higher than the man's
shoulder. They walked as if they had much to get and were ready for it.

"Well, I dunno," he said to himself. "I dunno about you, Dyck Calhoun.
You're wild, and ye have too manny mad friends, but you'll come all
right in the end; and that pretty girl--God save her!--she'll come with
a smile into your arms by and by, dear lad. But ye have far to go and
much to do before that."

His head fell, his eyes stared out into the shining distance.

"I see for ye manny and manny a stroke of bad luck, and manny a wrong
thing said of ye, and she not believing wan of them. But oh, my God, but
oh!"--his clenched hands went to his eyes. "I wouldn't like to travel
the path that's before ye--no!"

Down the long road the two young people travelled, gossiping much, both
of