he began, when he met Edwards under the
hill. "Fifty times I have been near achieving some great result, and my
ill luck has spoiled it all. You see me a broken-hearted man. To have
allied my family with a child of Nature like yourself would have given
me the greatest joy. But--how shall I express my grief?" And here the
old man struck a pathetically tragic attitude and drew out his
handkerchief, weeping with a profound self-pity.

"Mr. Lindsley, do you know why Miss Lindsley has become so suddenly
displeased with me?" asked the trapper, trembling.

"Miss Lindsley, sir, is perverse. It is the one evil trait that my
enlightened system of education, drawn from Rousseau, Pestalozzi,
Froebel, and Herbert Spencer, and combined by my own genius--it is the
one evil trait that my system has failed to eradicate. She is perverse.
I fear, sir, she is yet worshiping the image of a misguided youth who,
filled and puffed up with the useless learning of the schools, ventured
to address her. I am the most unfortunate of men."

"Mr. Lindsley, can I see your daughter alone?"

The old man thought he could. But she was very perverse. In truth, that
very morning Emilia had, in a sublime spirit of self-immolation, vowed
that she would love none but the long-lost lover, and that if Brown
never came back she would die heroically devoted to him, and thus she
had sacrificed to her conscience and it was appeased. But right atop
this vow came the request of Edwards for an interview. Was ever a girl
so beset? Could she trust herself? On thinking it over she was afraid
not; so that it was only by much persuasion that she was prevailed on
to grant the request.

While Edwards talked she could but listen, frightened all the time at
the faintness of her solemn resolution, which had seemed so irrevocable
when she made it. He frankly demanded the reason for her change of
conduct toward him. And she, like an honest and simple-hearted girl,
told the other love story with a trembling voice, while Edwards
listened with eyes downcast.

"This was five years ago?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"And the young man's name?"

"Was Edward Brown."

"Curious! I think," he said slowly, pausing as if to get breath and
keep his self-control, "I think, if my hair were cut off short and
parted on one side as Edward Brown wore his, instead of in the middle,
and if my whiskers were shaven off, and if the tan of five years'
exposure were gone from my face, and if I were