e broods, And the badgers roll at
ease, There was once a road through the woods.

"'Yet, if you enter the woods Of a summer evening late, When the night
air cools on the trout-ringed pools Where the otter whistles his mate
(They fear not men in the woods Because they see so few), You will hear
the beat of a horse's feet, And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through The misty solitudes, As though they
perfectly knew The old lost road through the woods.... But there is
no road through the woods.'"

"I don't like that at all," cried the soldierman. "It's too--too
sad--it doesn't give you any encouragement. The way it ends, I mean:
'But there is no road through the woods.' Of course there's a road!
For us there always will be. I'm going to make sure. I'm going to buy
those woods, and keep the lost road where we can always find it."

"I don't think," said the girl, "that he means a real road."

"I know what he means," cried the lover, "and he's wrong! There is a
road, and you and I have found it, and we are going to follow it for
always."

The girl shook her head, but her eyes were smiling happily.

The "season" at Agawamsett closed with the tennis tournament, and it
was generally conceded fit and proper, from every point of view, that
in mixed doubles Lee and Miss Gardner should be partners. Young
Stedman, the Boston artist, was the only one who made objection. Up in
the sail-loft that he had turned into a studio he was painting a
portrait of the lovely Miss Gardner, and he protested that the three
days' tournament would sadly interrupt his work. And Frances, who was
very much interested in the portrait, was inclined to agree.

But Lee beat down her objections. He was not at all interested in the
portrait. He disapproved of it entirely. For the sittings robbed him
of Frances during the better part of each morning, and he urged that
when he must so soon leave her, between the man who wanted her portrait
and the man who wanted her, it would be kind to give her time to the
latter.

"But I had no idea," protested Frances, "he would take so long. He told
me he'd finish it in three sittings. But he's so critical of his own
work that he goes over it again and again. He says that I am a most
difficult subject, but that I inspire him. And he says, if I will only
give him time, he believes this will be the best thing he has done."

"That's an awful thought," said the cavalry officer.

"Y