e crossing a river and the flight of a day all that
divided his past life from what he thought awaited him now!

While yet at a distance, he called to her,--not from impatience, but
because he stood in awe of the meeting, and wanted the first moments
over. His voice touched Gnulemah like a beloved hand, and turned her
towards him. Her face, which had not learned to be the mask of
emotion, but was instead the full and immediate index thereof,
brightened with joy; and as he came near, the joy increased. Yet a
seriousness deep down in her eyes, marked the shadow of a night and
the dawn of another day. A spiritual chemistry had been working in
her.

She did not move forward to meet him but stood delighting in the sense
of his ever-growing nearness. When at length he stood close before
her, she drew a long, pleasant breath and said,--

"A beautiful morning!"

This was no commonplace greeting, for it was not made in a commonplace
manner. It said that his coming had consummated the else imperfect
beauty of nature, and won its expression from Gnulemah's lips. The
commonplace wondered to find itself transmuted into a compliment of
fine gold!

Gnulemah's attire to-day was more Diana-like than yesterday's, and
looked as appropriate to her as leaves to trees or clouds to the sky.
Her dress, indeed, was not so much a conventional appendage as a
living, sensitive part of her, which might be supposed to change its
color and style in sympathy with her shifting moods and surroundings,
yet never losing certain distinctive traits which had their foundation
in her individual nature.

"A beautiful morning!" returned Balder, taking her hand. "Were you
expecting me?"

"I feared you might not show yourself to me again," she answered, with
sudden tears twinkling on her eyelashes. She seemed more tenderly
human and approachable to-day than heretofore. Had she found her
mountain-height of unmated solitude untenable?--found in herself a
yielding woman, and in Balder the strength that is a man? This
descent, which was a sweet ascent, made her endlessly more lovable.

"I come here always when I feel lonely," continued she. "If it had not
been for this place, with its great outlook, I should often have been
too lonely to stay in the world."

"We all need an outlook to a larger, world, Gnulemah."

"Besides, you came to me from the other side!" said she glancing in
his face.

"Did you see me there?" Balder was on the point of asking; but