st about here," he said, reminiscently, as he
hitched the horse to a tree and held out his hand to Carey. They
walked on into the depths of the woods until they came to a fallen
tree.

"Let us sit here," he suggested.

She obeyed in silence.

An early frost had snatched the glory from the trees, whose few brown
and sere leaves hung disconsolately on the branches. High above them
was an occasional skirmishing line of wild ducks. The deep stillness
was broken only by the scattering of nuts the scurrying squirrels were
harvesting, by the cry of startled wood birds, or by the wistful note
of a solitary, distant quail.

"Do you remember that other--that first day we came here?" he asked.

She glanced up at him quickly.

"Is this really the place where we came and you told me stories?"

"You were only six years old," he reminded her. "It doesn't seem
possible that you should remember."

"It was the first time I had ever been in any kind of woods," she
explained, "and it was the first time I had ever played with a
grown-up boy. For a long time afterward, when I teased mother for a
story, she would tell me of 'The Day Carey Met David.'"

"And do you remember nothing more about that day?"

"Oh, yes; you made us some little chairs out of red sticks, and you
drew me here in a cart."

"Can't you remember when you first laid eyes on me?"

"No--yes, I remember. You drove a funny old horse, and I saw you
coming when I was waiting at the gate."

"Yes, you were at the gate," he echoed, with a caressing note in his
voice. "You were dressed in white, as you are to-day, and that was my
first glimpse of the little princess. And because she was the only one
I had ever known, I thought of her for years as a princess of my
imagination who had no real existence."

"But afterwards," she asked wistfully, "you didn't think of me as an
imaginary person, did you?"

"Yes; you were hardly a reality until--"

"Until the convention?" she asked disappointedly.

"No; before that. It was in South America, when I began to write my
book, that you came to life and being in my thoughts. The tropical
land, the brilliant sunshine, the purple nights, the white stars, the
orchids, the balconies looking down upon fountained courts, all
invoked you. You answered, and crept into my book, and while we--you
and I--were writing it, it came to me suddenly and overwhelmingly that
the little princess was a living, breathing person, a woman who mayhap