waying shrubs tossed wildly
about, a mockery of the grace and bloom that had once embellished it.
His wet hair Streaming backward in the wind caught on the laurel boughs
as he went down and down the tangled path that her homesick feet had
worn to the crag which overlooked the Cove. Not there! He stood,
himself enveloped in the mist, and gazed blankly into the folds of the
dun-colored clouds that with tumultuous involutions surged above the
valley and baffled his vision. He realized it with a sinking heart. She
was gone.

*****

That afternoon--it was close upon nightfall--Stephen Quimbey, letting
down the bars for the cows, noticed through the slanting lines of rain,
serried against the masses of sober-hued vapors which hid the great
mountain towering above the Cove, a woman crossing the foot-bridge. He
turned and lifted down another bar, and then looked again. Something
was familiar in her aspect, certainly. He stood gravely staring. Her
sun-bonnet had fallen back upon her shoulders, and was hanging loosely
there by the strings tied beneath her chin; her brown hair, dishevelled'
by the storm, tossed back and forth in heavy wave-less locks, wet
through and through. When the wind freshened they lashed, thong-like,
her pallid oval face; more than once she put up her hand and tried to
gather them together, or to press them back--only one hand, for she
clasped a heavy bundle in her arms, and as she toiled along slowly up
the rocky slope, Stephen suddenly held his palm above his eyes. The
recognition was becoming definite, and yet he could scarcely believe his
senses: was it indeed Evelina, wind-tossed, tempest-beaten, and with as
many tears as rain-drops on her pale cheek? Evelina, forlorn and sorry,
and with swollen sad dark eyes, and listless exhausted step--here again
at the bars, where she had not stood since she dragged her wounded lover
thence on-that eventful night two years and more ago.

Resentment for the domestic treachery was uppermost in his mind, and he
demanded surlily, when she had advanced within the sound of his words,
"What hev ye kem hyar fur?"

"Ter stay," she responded, briefly.

His hand in an uncertain gesture laid hold upon his tuft of beard.

"Fur good?" he faltered, amazed.

She nodded silently.

He stooped to lift down the lowest bar that she might pass. Suddenly
the bundle she clasped gave a dexterous twist; a small head, with
yellow downy hair, was thrust forth; a pair of fawn-like ey