ed brilliancy of her eyes.

The plain, but wholesome mountain fare disappeared rapidly before the
appetites sharpened by the bracing air of that altitude, and still the
little company lingered at the table, loath to tear themselves away.

Plans were made for a few days and evenings of genuine enjoyment,
before proceeding any further with the business in which all were so
deeply interested. Houston and Van Dorn would of course be more or
less confined by their work, and it was voted that, during the day,
Mr. Rutherford should be entertained by the ladies, or, as the hunting
and fishing season had now opened, he and Ned would be able to find
considerable sport in the surrounding country. But the evenings were
to be spent by the entire party in visits to the different points of
interest and beauty already familiar to some of their number.

"And one of the first places to visit," said Ned Rutherford, at this
point in the conversation, "will be the cascades; we will go out there
in boats, you know, with the guitar and violin, and have music just as
we did the first time we ever went out. Great Scott! but I never will
forget that night as long as I live!"

"With the ladies' approval, that will be one of our first trips," said
Houston.

"You play and sing, do you not, Mr. Rutherford?" Miss Gladden
inquired, addressing the elder brother.

"Yes, occasionally," he answered, with a peculiar smile.

"What instrument do you use?"

"I can accompany myself on several different instruments," he replied,
"but the violin is my favorite; it is capable of more expression than
most others."

At last the little party adjourned to the porch, and Lyle, under the
pretext of some household duties, excused herself, and escaped to her
own little room. Here her forced composure gave way, and her highly
wrought feelings found relief in a passionate burst of tears, though
why she wept, she could not have told.

Unconsciously to herself, perhaps, Morton Rutherford had of late
become the hero of her thoughts, partially on account of her high
estimate of him, and also because of the sympathy which she felt would
exist between them in taste and thought and feeling. She had dreamed
of a friendship with him, perhaps more perfect and helpful than any
she had yet known; but they had met, and in that one glance had been
revealed to her a natural affinity deeper than any of which she had
ever dreamed, and the impossibility of a calm, Platonic frien