e removal
from Barnriff to the world of hills and valleys, which was Will's
world. There were so many things to think of,--yet--yet she knew her
answer beforehand. She loved, and she was a woman, worldly-wise, but
unworldly.

The evening was drawing in, and the soft shadows were creeping out of
the corners of the little room. There was a gentle mellowness in the
twilight which softened the darns in the patchwork picture the place
presented. This room was before all things her shop; and, in
consequence, comfort and the picturesque were sacrificed to utility.
Yet there was a pleasant femininity about it. A femininity which never
fails to act upon the opposite sex. It carries with it an influence
that can best be likened, in a metaphoric sense, to a mental aroma
which soothes the jagged edges of the rougher senses. It lulls them to
a gentle feeling of seductive delight, a condition which lays men so
often open to a bad woman's unscrupulousness, but also to a good
woman's influence for bringing out all that is greatest and best in
their nature.

The waiting was too long for Will. He was a lover of no great
restraint.

"Well, Eve?" he demanded, almost sharply. "Two months to-day. Will
you? We can get the parson feller that comes here from Rocky Springs
to--marry us."

The dwarf brushed his rope out of his lap, and, rising, hobbled to
Eve's side, and stood peering up into her face in his bird-like way.
But he offered no word.

Eve's hand caressed his silky head. She nodded, nodded at the distant
hills through the window.

"Yes, Will, dear."

The man was at her side in an instant, while Elia slunk away. The
youth drew back and turned tail, slinking off as though driven by a
cruel lash in the hand of one from whom kindness is expected. He did
not return to his seat, but passed out of the house. And the girl and
man, in their moment of rapture, forgot him. At that moment their
lives, their happiness, their love, were the bounds of their whole
thought.

For moments they stood locked in each other's arms, oblivious to all
but the hot passion that ran through their veins. They were lost in
the dream of love which was theirs. The world was nothing, life was
nothing, except that it gave them this power to love. They drank in
each other's kisses till the woman lay panting in the fierce embrace
of the man, and he--he was devouring her with eyes which hungered for
her, like the eyes of a starving man, while he crushed her i