eyes, but brought no answering thought in his, for he was busy with his
plans.

"Then, you see, Zora, if you stay here you'll need a new house, and
you'll want to learn how to make it beautiful."

"Yes, a beautiful, great castle here in the swamp," she dreamed; "but,"
and her face fell, "I can't get money enough to board in; and I don't
want to board in--I wants to be free."

He looked at her, curled down so earnestly at her puzzling task, and a
pity for the more than motherless child swept over him. He bent over
her, nervously, eagerly, and she laid down her sewing and sat silent and
passive with dark, burning eyes.

"Zora," he said, "I want you to do all this--for me."

"I will, if you wants me to," she said quietly, but with something in
her voice that made him look half startled into her beautiful eyes and
feel a queer flushing in his face. He stretched his hand out and taking
hers held it lightly till she quivered and drew away, bending again
over her sewing.

Then a nameless exaltation rose within his heart.

"Zora," he whispered, "I've got a plan."

"What is it?" she asked, still with bowed head.

"Listen, till I tell you of the Golden Fleece."

Then she too heard the story of Jason. Breathless she listened, dropping
her sewing and leaning forward, eager-eyed. Then her face clouded.

"Do you s'pose mammy's the witch?" she asked dubiously.

"No; she wouldn't give her own flesh and blood to help the thieving
Jason."

She looked at him searchingly.

"Yes, she would, too," affirmed the girl, and then she paused, still
intently watching him. She was troubled, and again a question eagerly
hovered on her lips. But he continued:

"Then we must escape her," he said gayly. "See! yonder lies the Silver
Fleece spread across the brown back of the world; let's get a bit of it,
and hide it here in the swamp, and comb it, and tend it, and make it the
beautifullest bit of all. Then we can sell it, and send you to school."

She sat silently bent forward, turning the picture in her mind. Suddenly
forgetting her trouble, she bubbled with laughter, and leaping up
clapped her hands.

"And I knows just the place!" she cried eagerly, looking at him with a
flash of the old teasing mischief--"down in the heart of the
swamp--where dreams and devils lives."

* * * * *

Up at the school-house Miss Taylor was musing. She had been invited to
spend the summer with Mrs. Grey at Lake George