cannot be any more
wrong to-day."

"But it was not so far off," murmured the young girl, without looking
up.

"Oh, the distance makes it more improper, then," he said abstractedly;
but after a moment's contemplation of her half-averted face, he asked
gravely, "Has any one talked to you about me?"

Ten minutes before, Nellie had been burning to unburden herself of her
father's warning, but now she felt she would not. "I wish you wouldn't
call yourself Low," she said at last.

"But it's my name," he replied quietly.

"Nonsense! It's only a stupid translation of a stupid nickname. They
might as well call you 'Water' at once."

"But you said you liked it."

"Well, so I do. But don't you see--I--oh dear! you don't understand."

Low did not reply, but turned his head with resigned gravity towards
the deeper woods. Grasping the barrel of his rifle with his left hand,
he threw his right arm across his left wrist and leaned slightly upon
it with the habitual ease of a Western hunter--doubly picturesque m his
own lithe, youthful symmetry. Miss Nellie looked at him from under her
eyelids, and then half defiantly raised her head and her dark lashes.
Gradually an almost magical change came over her features; her eyes
grew larger and more and more yearning, until they seemed to draw and
absorb in their liquid depths the figure of the young man before her;
her cold face broke into an ecstasy of light and color; her humid lips
parted in a bright, welcoming smile, until, with an irresistible
impulse, she arose, and throwing back her head stretched towards him
two hands full of vague and trembling passion.

In another moment he had seized them, kissed them, and, as he drew her
closer to his embrace, felt them tighten around his neck. "But what
name do you wish to call me?" he asked, looking down into her eyes.

Miss Nellie murmured something confidentially to the third button of
his hunting-shirt. "But that," he replied, with a faint smile, "_that_
wouldn't be any more practical, and you wouldn't want others to call me
dar--" Her fingers loosened around his neck, she drew her head back,
and a singular expression passed over her face, which to any calmer
observer than a lover would have seemed, however, to indicate more
curiosity than jealousy.

"Who else _does_ call you so?" she added earnestly. "How many, for
instance?"

Low's reply was addressed not to her ear, but her lips. She did not
avoid it, but added, "And do you