he hastily withdrew his head and shoulders. "We get pretty
close to the edge of things sometimes and never know how near we are to
destruction."

"We were pretty close that night," Elinor replied.

"Shall we rest here a little while, or do your savage sorority sisters
require you to do time in so many minutes?" Vic asked, as they left
the cave and came again into the sunlight, and all the sweetness of the
April woodland, and the rugged beauty of the glen.

"I'm glad to rest," Elinor said, dropping down on a stone. Her cheeks
were blooming from the exercise of the tramp, and her pretty hair was in
disorder.

Far away from the west prairie came the faint note of a child's voice in
song.

"Victor," Elinor said, as they listened, "do you know that the Sunrise
girls envy Bug Buler? They say you would have more time for the girls
if it wasn't for him. What you spend for him you could spend on light
refreshments for them, don't you see?"

"I know I'm a stingy cuss," Vic said, carelessly, but a deeper red
touched his cheek.

"You know you are not," Elinor insisted, "and I've always thought it
was a beautiful thing for a big grown man like you to care for a little
orphan boy. All the girls think so, too."

Burleigh looked down at her gratefully.

"I thought once--in fact, I was told once--that my care for him was
sufficient reason why I should let all the girls alone, most of all why
I should not think of Elinor Wream."

"How strange!" Elinor's face had a womanly expression. "I've never had
a little child to love me. I've been brought up with only AEneas's
small son Ascanius, and other classical children, on Uncle Joshua's Dead
Language book shelves. I feel sometimes as if I'd been robbed."

"You? I didn't know you had ever wanted anything you did n't get."

Victor had thought all things were due to her and came as duly. The
womanly look on her face now was a revelation to him. But then he had
not dared to study her face for months, and he did not yet realize what
life in Dr. Fenneben's home must mean to her character-building.

"I'll tell you some time about something I ought to have had, a
sacrifice I was forced to make; but not now, Tell me about Bug."

There was no bitterness in Elinor's tone, yet the idea of her having the
capacity to endure gave her a newer charm to the man beside her.

"I have never known whose child Bug is," he began. "The way in which
he came to me is full of terrible memories, and it