er figure, though not its splendid upright pose, and on her head was a
small fur cap of some light colour, white fox or rabbit. Beneath showed
her dark glossy hair curling upwards over the brim, and her glowing
face rich and fresh as a Damascus rose.

Talbot was greatly struck. The realisation of her beauty came home to
him very forcibly in this cold, envious light of open day. "Stephen's
not such a fool, after all," was his inward comment as he went forward
to meet them. As he lifted her from her pony and bade her welcome to the
cabins and the west gulch, she smiled down upon him. What a mysterious,
magic thing human beauty is, and the human smile! It seems to light the
dreariest sky, people the loneliest landscape. Where there is a human
smile to reflect one's own, not even a desert seems desolate, not even a
prison cell seems cold. Talbot felt this very strongly in that moment.
As the warm, bright, laughing, youthful face looked into his, the sun
seemed to have suddenly burst out upon that dreary snowy plain, and as
the two men escorted her over the threshold it seemed to both that they
were throwing open the door not only to her concrete self but to the
abstracts, warmth and light, and gaiety and laughter, and that these all
flowed in with her into the simple rough interior, transforming and
illumining it.

Katrine was delighted with her new home; she walked about examining
every detail and showing her joy and pleasure in each little trifle that
had been prepared for her. She had a very soft voice and manner when she
chose,--she was too young yet for her gambling, drinking, and rough
associates to have spoiled,--and Stephen stood in the centre of the
room, flushed and silent with the fulness of his pleasure, following her
eagerly with his eyes. After all, in this world of ours, everything
stands in such close relation to its surrounding objects and
circumstances that there is no absoluteness left. Or you may consider it
the other way, that the feelings are absolute and always the same. A
millionaire bridegroom could not receive more pleasure from the
pleasure of his bride when viewing the mansion he had prepared for her,
than Stephen did now from Katrine's approval of his log hut, and her
thanks and smiles were as sweet over a little wooden shelf tacked
against the wall, as if a two thousand dollar chandelier had called them
forth.

Then Stephen took her arm and drew her into the next room, and here she
was so sh