ayal of friendship. They
have adopted me, so to speak, and are so naive and kind, and have
trusted me--I think they are my friends. I may be very odd--you know."

"I know how you feel," said Betty.

The bishop's little daughter had assumed the proprietorship of the
doctor. She even preferred his companionship to that of her puppy. She
clung to his hand as he walked away, pulling and swinging upon his arm
to coax him back. He took her in his arms and carried her out upon the
walk, the small dog barking and snapping at his heels, as David
threatened to bear his tyrannical young mistress away to the station.

"Doggie wants you to leave me here," she cried, pounding him vigorously
with her two little fists.

He brought her back and placed her on the broad, flat top of the high
gate-post. "Very well, doggie may have you. I will leave you here."

"Doggie wants you to stay, too." She held him with her small arms about
his neck.

"Well, doggie can't have me." He unclinched her chubby hands, crossed
them in her lap, and held them fast while he kissed her tanned and rosy
cheek. "Good-by, you young rogue," he said, and strode away.

"Come and lift me down," she wailed. But he knew well she could scramble
down by herself when she chose, and walked on. She continued to call
after him; then, spying Frale in the wood yard, she imperatively
summoned him to her aid, and trotted at his side back to the woodpile,
where they sat comfortably upon a log and visited together.

They were the best of friends and chattered with each other as if both
were children. In the slender shadow of a juniper tree that stood like a
sentinel in the corner of the wood yard they sat, where a high board
fence separated them from the back street.

The bishop's place was well planted, and this corner had been the
quarters of the house servants in slave times. It was one of Frale's
duties to pile here, for winter use, the firewood which he cut in short
lengths for the kitchen fire, and long lengths for the open fireplaces.

He hated the hampered village life, and round of small duties--the
weeding in the garden, cleaning of piazzas and windows, and the sweeping
of the paths. The woodcutting was not so bad, but the rest he held in
contempt as women's work. He longed to throw his gun in the hollow of
his arm and tramp off over his own mountains. At night he often wept,
for homesickness, and wished he might spend a day tending still, or
lying on a ridge w